Articles

Notes on writing Chinese characters, stroke order, and the mistakes that keep coming back.

• 22/10/2026

  Copying characters doesn't work. Here's what does.

  Copying a character feels productive and leaves almost nothing behind. The difference between copying and recalling is the difference between recognising a character and being able to write it.

• 22/10/2026

  1,200 characters in 90 days — how many a day, really?

  Divide 1,200 by 90 and you get 13.3. That is not your daily number. Rest days and reviews change the arithmetic, and the answer is 16.

• 21/10/2026

  Seven stroke-order mistakes beginners keep making

  Bad handwriting is usually not weak hands. It is writing the strokes in the wrong order from the very first character. These seven mistakes repeat most often, and each one has a fix.

• 20/10/2026

  How many characters does HSK actually ask you to write?

  HSK has 3,088 characters to read but only 1,200 to write. The number you personally need is smaller still, depending on the level you are taking. Here is the breakdown.

• 19/10/2026

  Five habits to drop early when you grew up with the Latin alphabet

  Vietnamese and Chinese run on different writing mechanics. All five habits below come from that difference — and all five are fixable.