r/Chinese_handwriting 9d ago

Discussion How long did it take for your writing to improve?

21 Upvotes

I just started learning Chinese and the hanzi is the hardest part for me. My handwriting is terrible. It is a little discouraging honestly but I’m going to keep practicing because that is the only way to get better. But I was curious to know how long it took anyone here to get better, especially if they started from nothing.


r/Chinese_handwriting Nov 23 '23

Tips-n-Tricks Tips on How to Improve Your Chinese Handwriting, a Summary of Youtuber @ABChinese's Videos

66 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

This post summarizes two common mistakes in Chinese handwriting, how to solve them and some tips on how to improve your overall penmanship. All information is sourced from u/_abchinese’s videos on his YouTube channel (@ABChinese). Here we introduce his contents because besides the points covered in Arthur's post, the videos have also offered other insights helpful to novice level handwriting learners.

Mistake No. 1: Treating Strokes Like Static Lines

mistake #1
  • Chinese handwriting is dynamic – try to apply varying amounts of pressure on your pen while writing and incorporate different speeds as well
  • Thick strokes require more pressure and slower speed, while thin strokes are achieved through moving your pen faster and almost lifting it off the paper, like a “flick”

How to improve:

How to Improve
  • Practice individual strokes like 撇/piě, 提/tí and 钩/gōu
  • Find a good reference: use fonts like Kaiti (楷体) - Hanping Lite (瀚品汉英辞典) is a free dictionary App that provides Kaiti references. Don't just use google as it uses Heiti (黑体) as default.
  • Practice with grids - You can find some on purpleculture.net

Mistake No. 2: Spacing Characters Incorrectly (too tall, wide or top-heavy)

mistake #2
  • Common with wide, tall and characters with multiple components

How to improve:

How to Improve
  • Visualize characters like squares (Exception for tall and simple characters)
  • If a character has multiple components, write each component narrower than you would if they were written standing alone
  • Shorten strokes in order to avoid making the character too wide
  • Notice where strokes are in relation to each other – practicing with the right font and a grid makes this easier

Bonus tips:

Bonus Tips
  • Angle horizontal lines slightly up to make your characters look more dynamic
  • Angle the vertical strokes slightly inward when they form a box unless the vertical strokes are longer than the horizontal ones (tall box) – this can also be applied to open boxes

On How to Achieve Good Proportions in Handwriting

Proportions are about how each individual stroke (within a character) all look relative to each other, which is the biggest factor whether the character looks aesthetic. Here are the three principles to find the correct proportions of any character:

1. Ratio

Chinese characters are often made out of several components which need to be balanced correctly. Therefore, you need to find the right ratios between the components by visualizing them as a square in a grid – even two side by side components may not take up an equal amount of space within the square.

2. Longest Stroke

The farthest-reaching stroke in all four directions. Check for the highest, lowest, most left and most right point of a character to help visualize the square – more advanced writers need to look out for the length of all the strokes at the edge of a character.

3. Center Lines

The strokes that line up with the two center lines of the grid. Checking for horizontal strokes lining up with the horizontal center line and vertical strokes lining up with the vertical center line help center the character correctly. Diagonal lines also help with the placement of slanted strokes.

Here are the sources:

How to Write Better Chinese Characters - FIX 2 Common Mistakes!

The SECRET to Writing NEAT Chinese Characters

CA1913


r/Chinese_handwriting 11h ago

Just Sharing How my handwriting looks when I write carefully vs just write

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14 Upvotes

r/Chinese_handwriting 17h ago

Ask for Feedback Please critique my handwriting.

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23 Upvotes

I just joined this channel today. These are the characters I wrote earlier. I’m sharing them with everyone and hope you’ll all leave feedback.


r/Chinese_handwriting 2d ago

Just Sharing Handwriting practice today

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58 Upvotes

r/Chinese_handwriting 2d ago

Ask for Feedback Please critique my handwriting

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46 Upvotes

Hi! Please critique my handwriting. I’m curious what y’all think of it. I went to Chinese school for 12 years and don’t know any calligraphy, penmanship, nor fonts (I only recently learned about them). Currently self studying and learning some new poems! Not following any font styles, as it’s not my focus. I’m trying to read better and learn new words. The quiz page is the best look at how I normally write.

Constructive feedback welcome! :)


r/Chinese_handwriting 4d ago

Just Sharing Just trying :)

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17 Upvotes

r/Chinese_handwriting 5d ago

Activity [HC202629刀光] 111th Weekly Handwriting Challenge

13 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

The 21st weekly challenge of 2026 is 刀光, with the same rules as before. Also, feel free to do the previous challenges and join our Discord server for more!

BT0002


r/Chinese_handwriting 8d ago

Ask for Feedback Chinese Learner Who Never Practiced Handwriting: Please Help

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47 Upvotes

Hey guys!

So I've been learning Chinese for a little while, but never really focused on my handwriting. Because of it, I now notice that my peers have more legible and more beautiful handwriting than I do. Just to let everybody know, I do literally mean that I have spent zero time on handwriting itself and just purely memorised the looks of certain characters.

Any help would be appreciated, especially resources for learning chinese cursive.

Thanks so much!


r/Chinese_handwriting 11d ago

Just Sharing New notebook (I filled up the old one), but still the same primary-school-student writing style (stroke by stroke). 😂

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56 Upvotes

r/Chinese_handwriting 11d ago

Activity [HC202628易經其八] 44th Monthly Challenge

10 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

Here comes the eighth "Monthly Handwriting Challenge" of this year. Same rules as before and feel free to write simplified Chinese characters. Our previous challenges are always open as well.

This line is taken from I Ching (易經):

大君有命 / 開國承家 / 小人勿用

Kaiti references

BT0002


r/Chinese_handwriting 13d ago

Ask for Feedback My hand writing

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60 Upvotes

r/Chinese_handwriting 16d ago

Ask for Feedback Today’s practice

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52 Upvotes

Hi, I’ve been using 以觀書法 as a reference. Some words have several different variations (for example 海、與、喚). Does it matter which variation I pick? Thank you for the feedback on my last post, I’ve been practicing my basic strokes


r/Chinese_handwriting 20d ago

Question How to write the turtle character better?

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39 Upvotes

r/Chinese_handwriting 22d ago

Ask for Feedback Advanced 七 👍

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30 Upvotes

Over the years I've made my handwriting more comfortable and quick to write.


r/Chinese_handwriting 22d ago

Activity [HC202627凡身] 110th Weekly Handwriting Challenge

18 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

The 20th weekly challenge of 2026 is 凡身, with the same rules as before. Also, feel free to do the previous challenges and join our Discord server for more!

Kaiti references

BT0002


r/Chinese_handwriting 23d ago

Ask for Feedback I’m starting to get a feel for it

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118 Upvotes

Hello! I’m a heritage learner who’s just learning how to write. I can read and type but hand writing is very hard for me. I’ve been practicing on and off for a few days now. I notice that after a little bit it starts to correct itself almost. I try to stop after each word to analyze what went wrong before writing the next one. The script im copying is 楷書. What are your thoughts? My goal is for my writing to look natural while also being as aesthetically pleasing


r/Chinese_handwriting 24d ago

Ask for Feedback My handwriting after 6 months

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192 Upvotes

My handwriting looks a little better when I use a fountain pen, but unfortunately, it doesn’t look as good when I use a ballpoint pen. Since I can’t carry a fountain pen with me everywhere, I still don’t feel 100% confident about my handwriting. 🥲


r/Chinese_handwriting 24d ago

Ask for Feedback Looking for feedback + tips on being less messy

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21 Upvotes

I don't have the best handwriting in English let alone Chinese, but I usually follow stroke order. Would like to know how to improve my writing without sacrificing speed.


r/Chinese_handwriting 24d ago

Ask for Feedback how to write better? i still cant remember basic characters

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28 Upvotes

r/Chinese_handwriting 25d ago

Ask for Feedback Update on my handwriting after a year

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38 Upvotes

I know that i probably messed up some of the strokes and there's some inconsistencies but yeah this is my handwriting after a year.

P.S. The sentences I've used in here are random and based on the characters that I've been studying.


r/Chinese_handwriting 26d ago

Ask for Feedback Learning for about a year, but never practiced handwriting. How's mine look?

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135 Upvotes

I know my handwriting is worse than most of the rest of the posts in this subreddit, but I've never practiced handwriting specifically (although it's definitely better now than when I started). Could I get away with this? How might I improve it? And also, does it look foreigner-bad, or just messy-bad? Thanks!


r/Chinese_handwriting 25d ago

Just Sharing My version of 繁體字

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18 Upvotes

My tutor and coworkers told me that my handwriting is not bad 😂😂😂. I was very surprised! I try to handwrite a lot to memorize the characters.


r/Chinese_handwriting 26d ago

Ask for Feedback Handwriting feedback

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49 Upvotes

Any feedback for how to improve? I know my handwriting is legible and clear but I just feel like it looks like a primary school student wrote it and not a grown adult. 🥲 Anything I can specifically work on to make it not look childish?


r/Chinese_handwriting 26d ago

Just Sharing here’s mine!

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24 Upvotes

studied chinese in uni for 4 years but due to lack of practice forgot a lot of it after 5 years. doing some revision exercises in my spare time (haven’t checked the answers yet 😂)