A survey about Chinese proficiency

[imron]

Except for those people who have configured the forums to show more than 20 posts per page

[roddy]

Yep, You'll need another twenty or so to keep me safe. Incidentally, I think Google Sites is blocked in China.

[chrix]

I didn't say anything because I found a certain artistic value in Hofmann's posts. But next time you could just ask people to use the

put "spoiler" in square brackets to begin and then forward slash followed by "spoiler" to end

tags (which I was first taught about by imron )

[Scoobyqueen]

I know someone who writes the square in zhong in one stroke, and could imagine someone writing the o line (appearing in several characters) in two different strokes, not necessarily consecutively.Wouldnt it make sense to to take that into account?

[chrix]

I can write the entire zhong chracter in one stroke, but the one stroke would still approximately follow the "normal" stroke order

[Hofmann]

Except for those people who have configured the forums to show more than 20 posts per page

D'oh! Yes, use the spoiler thing. I didn't know about it. I'll try to edit the first post.

I know someone who writes the square in zhong in one stroke, and could imagine someone writing the o line (appearing in several characters) in two different strokes, not necessarily consecutively.Wouldnt it make sense to to take that into account?

I really didn't think someone would write like that. I think it's OK if I ignore that, because I don't think many people would do that, and because the correlation I'm looking for can't happen if one writes like that. So far, nobody has entered anything weird.

By the way, in the past, it would be normal to lift the brush while writing the O strokes, but I think putting more than one letter on them will confuse more people.

Edited March 21, 2010 at 07:53 PM by Hofmann

[Shi Tong]

I know that some people writing with a brush may break some rules, but there is a standard stroke order, which I think you're asking for, right Hofmann?

I took the test.. though my Chinese reading and writing is still pretty basic. Probably scored very badly!!

[Hofmann]

Actually what I'm looking for is not standard.

The specific correlation I'm looking for is between using PNTLR for 必 and high Chinese proficiency. PNTLR doesn't match any standard.

And there is no "score." There are only results. After I get enough results I can examine them.

[Shi Tong]

Wow, that's interesting..:

必 was probably the only character I was a bit confused over.. thinking "I'm not sure what the stroke order for this one is"/ "I've not been taught how to write this", because usually (correct me if I'm wrong), you start top left and work your way down to the bottom right (kind of) and horizontal strokes tend to go this way or that depending on the angle. I'm pretty sure I answered with PNTLR or something very close to this because I kind of applied my own logic to the answer.

My logic can be flawed, but I guess what you're looking for is the application of logic/ proficiency instead of teaching.

Thanks for the spoiler, and good luck with the results!!

[Hofmann]

I don't think logic alone will get PNTLR. As one might know, there are regional standards regarding Chinese characters, e.g. for the graph 戶, the PRC and Hong Kong standard is 户, the ROC standard is 戶, and the Japanese standard is 戸. There are also national standards in stroke order. For the graph 必, the PRC standard is LNTPR, the ROC and Hong Kong standard is LNTRP, and the Japanese standard is TPNLR. What is unusual about this character is that none of these standards use the stroke order most supported by research in calligraphy, which is PNTLR. There is only weak evidence for TPNLR, and no evidence for any other stroke order. For one to write PNTLR, one has to either be very lucky or deliberately go against what one is taught in school. The result is that very few people would write PNTLR without doing some research. Being competent at Chinese calligraphy entails having high Chinese proficiency and lots of research in Chinese characters. The hypothesis is that there will be correlation between high Chinese proficiency and using PNTLR on the character 必.

Another thread about this, somewhere else.

[Glenn]

Wow, I write it PLNTR, which is out of step with everything! Haha, oops (I guess?)

Man, it's like two different conversations going on here!

[Shi Tong]

Well, I agree that logic alone will not give you the "right" answer. My point was that after learning a lot of Chinese, you may apply a certain learned logic to your answer (so, you've memorised and can write 5000 characters and have a degree- therefore you apply your LEARNING as opposed to LOGIC to the answer.)

Interestingly enough, I had another look at the test and my answer.

I think my actual answer was LNTRP (Hong Kong style, no idea where I got that), writing the stroke for the third ventricle before the back slash of the P, but on second thoughts, I thought that the PRC/ ROC standard also "made sense" to me. Interesting that your reserch suggests that PNTLR is the best answer to give. I'm really looking forward to the results!!

[Hofmann]

Incidentally, I think Google Sites is blocked in China.

And I thought more people knew how to get around that. But it seems that there is a negative correlation between knowing how to do that and having high Chinese proficiency. It looks like I have to change my avatar to appeal to the target population then.

[imron]

Most people probably can, but it's often a pain to do compared to just normal browsing. What you need to consider is whether or not people will be so interested in taking your survey that they'll fire-up their VPN/tunnel/proxy to follow the link, or will they just not be bothered.