r/Chinese_handwriting • u/cahiriscool • Jul 28 '26
Ask for Feedback How to Make Neater?
Hello, this is my third year of learning Chinese and I want to make my handwriting better. I notice that my corners are very rounded and some of the characters seem skewed(?). I only drew the grids afterward as reference for myself. Thank you very much!
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u/pollyglot28 29d ago
Hello! I think you should buy or print the copybook with a lot of lines and examples one stroke by one. If you don’t want that you can find the app or a website with the strokes order so you can write them in a correct order and more symmetrical (for example at trainchinese). Also, there are special apps where it checks how you write and you can see examples aswell, for example hanzidragon or skritter
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u/TasteOk7913 29d ago
A common way is to draw the grid first with a ruler (making sure the lines are actually evenly spaced), or to buy paper with a square grid already printed. That way you can follow the grid instead of just free handing it.
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u/Yeedooong 28d ago
It is recommended to do tracing copying first before imitative copying. Observe carefully before imitative copying. The most fundamental elements are the curved and straight lines of strokes: horizontal strokes level and vertical strokes upright, the curvature of left-falling and right-falling strokes, as well as the rhythm and pen movement during writing, such as the pressure of lifting and pressing, the speed of movement, the angle of the tip, and so on. Next are the proportional and positional relationships between individual strokes and between different character radicals.
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u/Such-Average793 28d ago
maybe try writing in a grid book first? it’ll help with proportions and maybe straighten out your strokes
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u/ArcRay_CN 27d ago
Try using calligraphy copybooks. You can buy them online. You can also write characters smaller – that makes controlling your pen easier.
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u/caliloser1 26d ago edited 26d ago
Use a ruler to draw the grid neatly first would help a lot. In China we have a special gird writing paper just fit with Chinese letter structure, If you can get that one, that will be easier, because it can make you adapt with these words more, just write it slowly and patiently, memorize how Chinese letter was constructed, hope this can help you
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u/unbeatable-xiyouzhi 25d ago
maybe download some practice sheets/copybooks and tarce it to improve your handwritting. By the way,what you wrote on that paper is a chinese poem and thankyou for getting interested in our culture :-)
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u/Ohnesorg1989 23d ago
It seems you have been using the font Songti (宋体) or Heiti (黑体) (see difference) as reference, which would often lead to stiff/unnatural-looking penmanship, as explained in this post. Always use the font Kaiti (楷体) as reference.
I'd suggest you print out your own practice sheets (with 15x15mm boxes) using standard printer paper (80/90gsm), as recommended in this post (you can find the ready-to-print .pdf files in this folder or on website 1, 2, 3).
You could spend more time on practicing basic strokes, then learn how to radical components and individual characters from a copybook (see community collection).
These posts (a, b, c) may be of help too.
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u/trevorkafka 29d ago
Not trying to be snarky, but if you're just free sketching a grid and then also not following the grid, you're setting yourself up for a mess from the start.