How to Practice Writing Beautiful Letters Simple and Effective at Home

 Tips to Improve Your Handwriting

How to look at the psychology of admiration when seeing the handwritten "beautiful handwriting" of young students when participating in "word training" contests?

According to Prof. Nguyen Ngoc Lanh, the fact that students in the whole class, the whole school, and the whole district ... have to rush to take the "beautiful handwriting" exam shows a very outdated philosophy. Why do Vietnamese children keep wasting their youth on races that are useful for the "achievements" of those in power, but useless for their own future careers? 

Practice Writing Beautiful Letters Simple and Effective

 

There are no words, must be borrowed; borrowed a very difficult word to write

Three thousand years without words, by the fourth millennium, our ancestors had to accept Chinese characters. 

Misery! This is hieroglyphics; writing letters almost "drawing letters". Creativity is simply changing the way Chinese characters are read for Vietnamese people – that is, creating Sino-Vietnamese words. Written the same, China reads as "Zhen" and we read as "People". Up to now, Sino-Vietnamese words account for more than half or two thirds of our vocabulary. Happy or sad?

Let's say kanji prevailed thousands of years ago. In fact, it's unique, but "popular" why is it that only 1% of the population is literate?

In other words, 99% of our people can't read, and even listen to others read it for them, they don't understand.

Certainly, 99% of our ancestors in the past heard the sentences "Study children are indifferent, penitents are not mixed" (studying is not boring, teaching people is not tired) and "Fantastic sense of hindsight" (people who know first teach others who know better) later) like ducks hear thunder?

Moreover, using Chinese characters cannot record the folklore treasures created by Vietnamese people. Keeping by "word of mouth", how to avoid big loss?

Solved by creating Nom letters: Still falling into a vicious circle!

Nom script records Vietnamese (Vietnamese folk songs, proverbs, and poems). That is, when reading Nom literature, illiterate Vietnamese still understand. Our ancestors were more and more excited to compose in Nom script. It was thanks to the Nom script that the story of Kieu was born...

But it's a vicious circle. Because the most common way to create Nom characters is to combine two Chinese characters into one: In which, one word is used for "meaning", and the second is for "sound".

For example, if you want to write the word "hand", the tools combine the word "thu" (meaning hand) with the word "west" (western, doai). Readers have to… think or guess, to read as “hand”. It's annoying, you have to be good at kanji (and good at guessing) to learn, read, and write Nom. The number of people who know Chinese characters is still only 1%; know Nom as less than 1%.

“Good literature” must be accompanied by “good words: A natural story of the past”

"Good literature, good words" is the old saying about success in academics. 

In the past, a person's education was assessed in "literary". But "literary" is contained in... the stomach (they think so), no matter how good it is, it still has to be expressed in words for other people (for example, the examiner) to evaluate it. Therefore, "good writing" must also include "good writing".

Practicing "good characters" in the past was a hundred times more difficult (or thousands) than practicing the national language of today.
Writing words almost "drawing words", missing or excess of a stroke is meaningless or different meaning (wrong one glass by a few). The horizontal and vertical rows are all neat. Practicing writing Chinese characters is the hardship and fear of the old students, because this is the period when it is very easy to be "beaten" by the teacher.

But above the "good word" level, there is also the "beautiful word" level (extremely good). But it's a matter of talent, "hands-on"..., only for a few people.

At that time, just "good writing, good words" was enough to succeed in fame. These days, if only smooth writing and beautiful handwriting - although still an advantage - but not much can be said.

Blessings! Since 1915, our country has replaced Chinese characters with national characters. To pay off illiteracy, in the old days it took 3 years; Now it only takes 3 months. The same goes for practicing "good letters".

The hierarchy between “good writing” and “good writing”

In short, writing is the work of the head, writing is done by the hand.

– When the king wants to issue an edict, an ordination, an exhortation... then the "good writers" will accept the idea and draft the document. They must use appropriate language and write in “good handwriting” for the king to approve. After that, there will be people who have "extremely good letters" copied into many copies to send to other places. Thus, a "literary" person is a mandarin, close to the king; And people with "beautiful letters" are just letters, sometimes they don't see long faces in their whole life.

At the local level (religion, town, province, district), the head of government is still a "good writer", and among the assistants there are a few "well-literate" people (taking care of books, copying documents, etc.) .

Anyway, in the old days people with "good handwriting" (especially "beautiful words") still had suitable jobs. Today, it is difficult to earn a livelihood purely by "beautiful words". Because, the machine has replaced. The most beautiful writer in the country is only "as beautiful as a typewriter", or "like a printed book"(!).

Beautiful lettering

Nowadays, the machine has increasingly supplanted the dexterity of the hand. However, it is still advisable to organize a beautiful handwriting contest, to meet the aspirations of gifted people who want to compete – like many other gifted competitions.

Must add: Beautiful writing, more creativity, artist's soul... can still "live well" with calligraphy. In fact, the products of our calligraphers are often given as gifts.

As for the fact that students in the whole class, the whole school, the whole district... have to rush to take the "beautiful handwriting" exam, that's another story. It represents a very old-fashioned philosophy (that the powerful can arbitrarily impose, under some name - for example, to forge "human character" - to a few tens of millions of children), most dangerous of all. "achievement" disease, "movement" disease.

The number of people who rely on "good words" for their livelihood is getting rarer. So, today's parents, if they intend to invest money and effort in their children's "good words", need to think carefully.

Forged letters

- In the old days, not forging words would be disadvantaged. Because it is a difficult word to write and easy to make mistakes leading to erroneous meanings. Those who are "good writers" have not low social status. They had to draft "good" documents, so that the "excellent characters" would not be confused when copying. 

If they are adepts, they still compose (Le Huu Trac, Le Quy Don, Phan Huy Chu, Nguyen Du...) and have a team of "good characters" who have copied hundreds of books. Until people know how to engrave words on boards to print in bulk, the original must be written in "good letters" so that other workers won't be confused (very difficult to correct).

– In the modern times, when there was a national language script, a typewriter and a printer, the Nguyen Hong, Nguyen Huy Tuong, Nam Cao, Vu Trong Phung… still had to forge letters to save paper costs (paper is very expensive, must be written in very small letters) and to avoid confusion by the clerk typing on the typewriter; and to save the printer from making mistakes when arranging type. Something different: typewriters and typewriters don't need "fine letters" anymore. The writers of the next generation work at the wrong time, but adapt quickly: from handwriting, they switch to using the keyboard.

How much "beautiful letters" is enough?

If you go to school, you have to learn to write. Assuming that in the not too distant future, each student will own a compact computer (carry to class) containing all textbooks and reference materials; assuming they'll be taught to use the keyboard so fluently that typing is faster than writing (it's true: typing a word on the keyboard to make it appear on the screen is still faster than writing it on paper)… But, stop Sure, they still have to practice writing. Because in life, there are times when they have to write and not just rely on computers to finish.

So, how much should you practice writing? No need to argue and waste time; but let's see what "people" did.

1) Definitely, students must write enough strokes, enough accents, so that everyone can read their writing. They write it down for others to read (firstly to return the work to teachers; later, it is a job application letter that the selection place stipulates to "write by yourself", a receipt, and an autograph registration with the agency. manage…). As for taking notes for themselves, they are free to record and self-understand. 

2) They have to learn to write quickly, because the industrial age requires saving time.

3) They only write short. If long writing is required, a computer and printer are available.

That's enough.

Should the time that should be spent practicing writing today (especially for the "beautiful handwriting") exam, should it be used to teach children to use the keyboard? Many parents have realized the benefits.

– Not surprisingly, the "beautiful handwriting" solutions have the same handwriting, because they are taught according to the same model, although the internet has free a lot of beautiful letter samples.

– What is not strange anymore: When they had to write quickly, the winners returned to their original way of writing. Words are people. Therefore, we can "guess the personality of a person by handwriting". Draw: handwriting (for the exam) has nothing to do with "human character". Don't misunderstand.