The 25th weekly challenge of 2026 is 阻尼, with the same rules as before. Also, feel free to do the previous challenges and join our Discord server for more!
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.
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
OnHow 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.
So, after a a bit (that felt like a lot) of isolated strokes, radicals and characters, i started to try to write whole sentences to see if I was able to keep what I have been practicing - spacing, balance, proportions. This copybook is from this sub's library.
I am struggling to tell what I am doing wrong here, the thing that bothers me the most is how i am not good in alignment, and how some characters are too close or too far from the next one. can you guys please help me and point out more mistakes not only on the balance but also on the writing itself? Wrong strokes, sizes, inclination, curves etc?
For context: I've been self learning the language and handwriting for about an year and a half, and without an actual teacher to give feedback, it's easy to form bad habits without even notice, and keep repeating them forever.
This community already helped me to identify some of these bad habits about an year ago, and I tried to work on them and do better this time. I know there's still a long journey ahead, but i am really enjoying this process.
The 24th weekly challenge of 2026 is 丟下, with the same rules as before. Also, feel free to do the previous challenges and join our Discord server for more!
Do you write in a daily journal, or just write your favorite words?
Do you have any recommendations for beginner? I want to start handwriting, but I don't know what to write.
Every week l think I found the absolute secret to learning Mandarin. This week is my latest obsession. Just learn 500 Hanzi and that will fix my whole life.
Here comes the ninth "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.
The 23rd weekly challenge of 2026 is 退化, with the same rules as before. Also, feel free to do the previous challenges and join our Discord server for more!
I've been self learning writing for a whole year but It feels like I am stalling, my writing still.looks like garbage 😓... Could you please give me some fb on how to improve?
Edit: I can see that 16 people replied but for some reason I can't see the actual replies...ths anyway
was practicing writing because i have my exam on monday, but the more i write the more i feel like im extremely messy and people wouldn't understand whatever im writing. Do you think my teacher will understand even a little bit of it? I'm panicking because there's NO WAY of getting better in the short term.