Handwriting practice with Heisig's character list

[becky82]

While I'm totally underwhelmed by the Heisig and Richardson method (which lacks both pronunciation (!) and words (!!!)) as a study method, it provides a reasonable character order for handwriting practice for advanced students.

 

So I whipped up the attached document (3018 simplified characters).  It's adapted from this Pleco Forums post.  I had to fix a few errors from the Pleco post.  I added in character structures from Make Me a Hanzi.  I added as-common-as-possible words (or phrases, or names, where relevant).  I changed some tones on the 多音字 to more common pronunciations, and used capitalization when the given word/phrase/name requires is.  There's 100 characters per page (in a 10 x 10 layout), and so 31 pages (the first 15 pages is precisely the first volume of Heisig, and the remaining 16 pages is precisely the second volume).  The second volume is substantially harder than the first.

 

Enjoy.  The idea is that you download the pdf, print it out, and fill in the blanks for the characters you know.  (I estimate I can handwrite maybe 85% of the first volume, and maybe 40% of the second volume.)  You'll handwrite some characters incorrectly and you'll forget how to write some (the answers are at the bottom of each page).  From this, you can choose which characters you actually need to improve upon; most people won't need to be able to handwrite all 3018 characters.

 

I've been through this carefully to eliminate as many mistakes as possible (while practicing handwriting myself), but please let me know if you find any slip-ups.  I should be able to edit.

 

Do note that Heisig lists some rare characters; these characters I don't know, and am comfortable going into the HSK6 exam not knowing: 昭逾贱梅乃曼揪呐襟尹眷矢荫酋冈亥襄韦彥甫暇勒馨寅嚣矗砌灼灶炯晌淌桐焚逞轧榆炕淳亨墩瞻贰婿袄啼蒂顷沦炊淤蝗蚕遂赃桩怔瑟拭挟莽寇妓淑冶琉崎凯榕歼毙勋颓锹箩佐俏侍淫赎媚凛祟坤婶煞雏秉萧镰糠拂垮愕嗜菱窥窘绰绽缔绞绢孵玲岭梭垦靖豁潭涧轩悍疮殃秧焕拱浦缎舵溢敛魁俺奕驮芙蓉钧.  (Or, at least, I didn't know them at the time, but I've inadvertently learned some of them during the process of making this pdf.)  These rare characters occur mostly in the second volume, and are mixed in with common characters (another drawback of Heisig).

 

The Make Me a Hanzi database has a few bugs, and I may not have found them all (this would affect the character structure icons).  It describes e.g. 街 as ⿻ rather than ⿲ which seems debatable.

 

I'm thinking of expanding this pdf to e.g. include all the HSK characters:

 

Quote

HSK2.0 characters not in Heisig: 丐侃侈侥俐倔剔匹吝咀咋咙哆哦唆唠啃啬啰嗦嗨嗯嘈嚏堕墅墟婪嫉幢庇徙怯惋惦惫惮抒拄拙拽捍掐掰揍搀擎攒斟晤晾暄暧曝柬桔椎椭橙沐沮浏涮淀潇澈濒炫烹熨狈甭疙痪痹瘩瘸眶睦瞩磋窍簸紊绎缉肪肴膊舔荤蔼藐裔讳诧诽谤账赁赂踊蹋蹬辕辙迸遏酗酝钝锲阂阱韧饪馈髦

 

HSK3.0 characters not in Heisig: 丐丫侃侈倔兹刨剔匹卉卒卤卦厄吏吭呛咙哆哦唠啃嗦囱堕墅墟娥婪媲嫉嫦嬉孪屹峙崛巅幢弈弛弧徽怯恤惋惦惫慑抒抠抡抨拄拎拙拯拽捂捅捍捶掐掰掺揍搀撬擎攒攘晤曙曝杭柬椰楷槛橙汛沏沐沪沮沽浏涝涤涮淀淮渝漾潇潦澜灸炖炫炬烹焊煲煽狈猖畸痪痹瘟盹睦瞅瞩矣磊磋祀秽稽窍窒窿竣粤粽紊绎绯缅缉缤肇肪胚膊膳臊舔芭芯荆荧蔼蘸虔蜀裔讳讹诀诧诽谤账赁赂赡跤踊踹蹬蹭辙迪迭遏遛酗酝酣酥酵镑闺阂阎阱陨靶韧飙饵馁馈驭骇骏髦鲨

 

and make sure no common characters are missed, and perhaps give an indication when a character is rare.  But this presents additional challenges (especially which order to present the characters in), so we'll see; it looks like Mandarin Blueprint is doing something similar.

Heisig_chars.pdf

[honglam]

On 3/25/2024 at 11:57 AM, becky82 said:

It describes e.g. 街 as ⿻ rather than ⿲ which seems debatable.

The structure of 街 should be analysed as 行 and 圭. It's a semanto-phonetic character, in which 行 (originally meaning "crossway") implies the meaning, and 圭 hints the pronunciation. The picture is an oracle version of 街. The structures of 衙, 衢, 術(an non-simplified version of 术) are similar.

 

On 3/25/2024 at 11:57 AM, becky82 said:

昭逾贱梅乃曼揪呐襟尹眷矢荫酋冈亥襄韦彥甫暇勒馨寅嚣矗砌灼灶炯晌淌桐焚逞轧榆炕淳亨墩瞻贰婿袄啼蒂顷沦炊淤蝗蚕遂赃桩怔瑟拭挟莽寇妓淑冶琉崎凯榕歼毙勋颓锹箩佐俏侍淫赎媚凛祟坤婶煞雏秉萧镰糠拂垮愕嗜菱窥窘绰绽缔绞绢孵玲岭梭垦靖豁潭涧轩悍疮殃秧焕拱浦缎舵溢敛魁俺奕驮芙蓉钧.

Some of the characters here are frequently used in persons' names or places' names. I think more than 50% of the given characters appears a lot in news reports or similar articles.

[Tomsima]

I think that was the point that was trying to be made. As for the characters in question, I don't think any of them could be considered rare, I would suggest learning all if preparing for hsk 6. Starting from the head of the list, 司马昭之心，愈加，乃至, all common features in a higher register.

[becky82]

Attached is an updated version of the pdf (I got rid of some scattered pinyin bugs and capitalization errors, and changed some choices of word, e.g. 浇水 and 胶水 both have the form "[jiao1]水", which makes it hard to hard to figure out which "jiao1" it is).  Here's a YouTube video of me practicing handwriting using this pdf.

 

I've handwritten all 3018 characters twice now (I've been doing 400 per day, so it takes a while).  Here's a comparison of my handwriting for 100 characters from the first book (easy):

 

 

 

Left is an earlier version of this document (my handwriting was from about 2 weeks ago), and right is the above-linked version (my recent handwriting).  Red denotes characters I failed to handwrite correctly.

 

And here's 100 characters from the second book (hard):

 

 

It doesn't look like much, but you can see some improvements in my ability to figure out which character to write in which box.  I find the main issue nowadays is less "I don't know how to handwrite the character" and more "I don't know which character to handwrite".

 

(The other marks are not particularly important.  Yellow indicates changes I was thinking about making in the pdf.  The blue star indicates characters I should really be able to handwrite correctly, and the black question mark indicates characters I don't know.)

 

I already have a draft of another version where I've chosen which characters to include, rather than use Heisig's character list.  We'll see how this evolves.

   

On 3/25/2024 at 7:32 PM, honglam said:

The structure of 街 should be analysed as 行 and 圭. It's a semanto-phonetic character, in which 行 (originally meaning "crossway") implies the meaning, and 圭 hints the pronunciation.

 

In this document, I replace characters with blanks, and in those blanks I add icons that denote the characters' structure; most of the time it's easy, but sometimes like with 街 (which is just one example), I'm not sure whether it should count as ⿻ (like in Make Me a Hanzi), or ⿲ or ⿴ (like at Wiktionary).

  

On 3/25/2024 at 7:32 PM, honglam said:

Some of the characters here are frequently used in persons' names or places' names. I think more than 50% of the given characters appears a lot in news reports or similar articles.

 

Yeah, the characters I don't know are often used in flowery adjectives, names (of people or places, perhaps no longer used) and other characters like on the periodic table, or for fish, plants, insects, birds, heavenly/earthly stems, onomatopoeia, tools, historical relics, etc.  I don't feel like I lose marks on the practice exams because of such rare characters.

 

On 3/26/2024 at 6:52 AM, Tomsima said:

I think that was the point that was trying to be made. As for the characters in question, I don't think any of them could be considered rare, I would suggest learning all if preparing for hsk 6. Starting from the head of the list, 司马昭之心，愈加，乃至, all common features in a higher register.

 

Curiously, I have actually encountered a few of these unfamiliar characters since I posted last.  And some of them (due to posting here and editing the pdf) I've familiarized myself with.  When I say I don't know them, I mean I don't know their meanings and so on, e.g., I don't know what 昭 means.  If I encountered 司马昭之心 in my reading, I'd guess 昭 pronounced similar to 照, and infer 司马昭 is a name of someone likely related to 司马懿.

 

At some point, you have to draw the line.  I already know something like 3000 characters, which is several hundred more than the HSK6 syllabus.

 

Heisig_chars.pdf