I'm finding some kanji, while I can remember them, it's very difficult to draw them. Just the mechanics is difficult: it's hard to even just copy the kanji with it right in front of me.

I just got to the thread kanji and it's hard to draw 糸 and 系 when they aren't compacted on the left. Also hard to draw anything with a snare in it. 費 is also hard.

What kanji have you found difficult to draw mechanically?

All my kanjis look ugly if you mean that. But I had not much trouble drawing them.

I have found "警" hard to draw. I keep making it too "tall"..

One of my personal favorite kanji words: 警察

Both characters just become ugly under my brush..

警　is hard isn't it! My girlfriend laughed at me and said its easy, just write the top part small, bah easy for her to say...

For some reason, I have a really difficult time with 舞 (dance) and also 無 (nothingness). I remember the stories, I just mess up trying to draw the thing. My brain wants me to draw turkey or horse.

機 (Machine) is a bit difficult, so is 願 (Wish). The most difficult for me right now is 戯 (Sport).

I frickin despise handwritten 警, 誓 and 誉 (listed in order of offensiveness). Aesthetically, I mean. The accepted handwritten form, because it's really the only tenable way to write it, is to make the 言 part too tall & skinny, which completely unbalances the kanji to the point where it just looks completely disgusting. I can't believe the 言 hasn't been simplified to something writable in these characters. It's really a crime against humanity.
墨 is kind of tricky to write, too.

I (as well as my roommate from HKU) hate writing 警 sometimes, I've figured out how to do a decent job at it but I have to write it slowly and concentrate.

What about 鑿? 襲? Anything with a high stroke count is potentially troublesome.

I write my kanji in one of those math papers with squares, each kanji takes up 2x2 squares (slightly larger than lined paper in height)

The key is to try and make each kanji fill up the square and never go out of it. It really makes your kanji look nicer. You'll be surprised by how better your kanji looks if you just write it wider for ones like 糸
It also helps you find the half point so you can better adjust where the top and bottom radical should be

raseru Wrote:I write my kanji in one of those math papers with squares, each kanji takes up 2x2 squares (slightly larger than lined paper in height)

The key is to try and make each kanji fill up the square and never go out of it. It really makes your kanji look nicer. You'll be surprised by how better your kanji looks if you just write it wider for ones like 糸
It also helps you find the half point so you can better adjust where the top and bottom radical should be

I do the same thing. I've already filled up half my notebook, too. It's really helped give my handwriting more balance.

Still can't make anything that has "say" on the bottom not look crap, though... <_<

Oh man oh man. 興 (1426). Try and write that out without screwing it up.

[note: no offense intended]

the irony of alyks saying that is pretty funny. look at your avatar.

[again, no offense. it just struck me as funny. moving on...]

I have a sort of weird way of writing thread which is probably totally wrong, but it's the only way I can get it to work out right. If I am really careful with 警 I can get it to look okay, but it's tough. The graph paper is a good idea, though - I do that when I write sentences out sometimes and it's given my overall writing better balance.

襲 isn't much of an issue for me, but I just learned 鑿 the other day and good lord. That thing sticks up like a capital letter among lowercase letters when I write it.

I've been wondering about that avatar for some time myself. What's up with that, man?

I can't write 興 without it looking EXACTLY like a camera, heh. I'd work it into the mnemonic if only I had trouble remembering it. Overall, though, I can't really think of any that give me any SPECIFIC mechanical trouble. I know there are some, but I actually enjoy writing most of the ones mentioned here.

Of course, I think I'm probably just not as sensitive to my own horrible handwriting. Coming into this from my awful English handwriting, I was only expecting so much.

I think most people find the kanji with lots of components squashed together a problem. After lots and lots of practice, I'm starting to find them easier, and I even enjoy writing ones like 導 and 議 now.

Some tips:

- Start with the component kanji. Practice and practice until you can do them fluently.

- After that, practice squashing them appropriately as you write the complex kanji.

- Have a look at some good handwritten kanji as models. My kanji dictionary from when I was a kid has lovely handwritten examples of each kanji.

- Pay attention to the area allotted to each component. If one is meant to occupy only 1/3 of the area, then don't make it too big.

- Compare the lengths of the various strokes. Compare the longest stroke on one component with the longest one in the other component. I find that the difference between good and bad looking characters is often fine details like this.

- Likewise, compare the relative lengths of parallel strokes, relative positions of dots, and so on.

- I find it helps if I pretend that I'm writing with a brush and I put the stress at the correct points on each stroke.

Hope this helps...

I'm writing every kanji, in every review since the ~500. I still have my notebook from the start. It is even crappier than what I'm doing now. Hey! I'm improving!

What makes my handwriting get neater is trying to fulfill the whole square even with the smaller kanjis. In the beginning I was doing teh complicated ones too big and the simple ones too small.

QuackingShoe Wrote:I've been wondering about that avatar for some time myself. What's up with that, man?

It's awesome, that's what. 好きですか？

龘 is hard to get balanced.

I have a lot of trouble writing 曜, I hate it.

Also for some reason whenever I write 子, even though an extremely simple kanji, it NEVER, ever looks right. I fail.

I really can't stand 688 及 reach out, or any of those Kanji that contain that character.
For some reason, 及 feels so un-Kanji-like when I write it. Using the correct stroke order helps somewhat, the proportions come out so wrong.

It was a running joke in my japanese class in Tokyo that one of the first words we learned to write in kanji were one of the hardest: 飛行機. Both 飛 and 機 are hard to remember as they are and they are both hard to write without them looking odd.

emily00 Wrote:Also for some reason whenever I write 子, even though an extremely simple kanji, it NEVER, ever looks right. I fail.

I am so with you there. I actually managed to write it yesterday without it looking like a weird backwards 3 and I almost peed my pants because I was so surprised.

Yo, I'm just posting here that my crappy handwritting is getting quite neat. I was just needing more exposure.

The kanji for beat 撃 always gets me.

Squintox Wrote:The kanji for beat 撃 always gets me.

thanks to the top user story i will never forget this one

edit: just an aside, i'm aware of what this thread is about i think

When I try and write kanji left handed (ambidextrous), they all suddenly get really ugly.