As a foreigner I started studying Japanese in an all Chinese class with classes being taught in Mandarin ofcourse, which was a sometimes strange but otherwise really cool experience, and always wondered why Chinese students/ppl (no offence here) write their Chinese characters so much more beautiful then Japanese students/ppl write their Kanji. Having bothered my Japanese friends tons of times for grammar 説明, I always thought theirs is a little more childish (some even had downright ugly handwriting, sorry hehe) then the Chinese. Even though there are tons of websites, courses, writing stencils, software, special pens you-name-it available to Japanese people helping them improve their writing, it still doesn't compare. Make no mistake, I'm not saying Japanese people write ugly, but it seems like theirs is a bit more comicky/quirky compared to the usually beautiful cursive handwriting Chinese people have. Try having a (native ofcourse) Chinese person and a Japanese person write the same couple of Hanzi/Kanji and you'll see what I mean. Any thoughts?

*Okay, I know different people have different handwriting, but it's just what I've observed, no offence

This is totally unrelated to the topic, so please forgive me for not having anything useful to say about any discrepancies between Chinese and Japanese writing. But there's this question that I've been dying to ask someone who is literate in Chinese (I'm assuming that you are?)

Are there Hanzi compounds, just like the Kanji compounds? I know it's silly, but I notice that on my Chinese products in my house, the descriptions don't bunch the Hanzi together...they space them out like individual words. So I was wondering how frequent Hanzi compounds appear in Chinese literature...

Chinese schools (and parents) are likely a lot more strict about it.

Thunk Wrote:Are there Hanzi compounds, just like the Kanji compounds? I know it's silly, but I notice that on my Chinese products in my house, the descriptions don't bunch the Hanzi together...they space them out like individual words. So I was wondering how frequent Hanzi compounds appear in Chinese literature...

Like Japanese, Chinese doesn't have spaces. There are compounds in Chinese too, that is where most Japanese compounds came from after all. 3000-5000 characters is the estimate for literacy in Chinese. If compounds weren't common, that would mean people only used 3000-5000 words in writing, including functional words like 的.

I don't know what your chinese product looks like, but I've never seen anything spaced out like that in Chinese stuff I have.

I am not sure I'd say that it's a fair generalization to say that Chinese people have nicer handwriting. I've only spent a little over a year in China, so I might not be the greatest source, but in my experience it was pretty much equal to all the handwriting I saw in Japan. In both countries I feel like handwriting is diminishing in the masses due to the surge in popularity of computers in the past decade. Both Japanese and Chinese teenagers I feel often forget strokes in characters due to the simple fact that they're typing far more often than they're writing by hand. Also, since teenagers now abbreviate many words and type in hiragana far more often than the past, perhaps the new generation is less educated in hand-writing kanji than the Chinese.

But overall I'd say it's too subjective to make a generalization. Handwriting varies far too much between individuals, and I saw many Chinese with poor handwriting. Some of the best handwriting I saw was actually in Taiwan. The older generations of Japanese mostly have very nice handwriting. My aunt and grandmother have the most gorgeous calligraphy.

Aijin Wrote:In both countries I feel like handwriting is diminishing in the masses due to the surge in popularity of computers in the past decade. Both Japanese and Chinese teenagers I feel often forget strokes in characters due to the simple fact that they're typing far more often than they're writing by hand. Also, since teenagers now abbreviate many words and type in hiragana far more often than the past, perhaps the new generation is less educated in hand-writing kanji than the Chinese.

The older generations of Japanese mostly have very nice handwriting. My aunt and grandmother have the most gorgeous calligraphy.

Perhaps you're right since teenagers do write less and use computers more and more. Though I'm not saying Chinese write more beautiful than Japanese, it's just what I've observed in class that most (so yes there were some that had kiddie handwriting) of my Chinese classmates had beautiful cursive handwriting the ones you usually expect from older people yet all my Japanese friends didn't. But ofcourse, I can't generalize it from this small observation. I guess what Jarvik7 wrote might also be true that Chinese schools are more strict about it.

ごめんねアイジンさん、僕は悪口を言わなくて自分の意見だけ。やっぱりそんなことないね、気にしないで下さい ところで、中国で留学のことがありましたかね？中国のどこ？

And Hanzi compounds? Yea, lot's of 'em! Most words are made up of compounds.

Uh.. could you provide some example pictures? Chinese hanzi and Japanese kanji are written differently, and by the sound of it that is what you are observing. That one style looks more "beautiful" than the other is a rather subjective opinion. One I happen to agree with, but just an opinion nonetheless.

I know, it's only an observation and opinion. And Kanji/Hanzi are written for the most part the same (yea I know, there are simplified, semi-simplefied, kokuji etc.) and people don't need to write exactly the same characters to see what what their handwriting looks like. Beautful handwriting is subjective to taste, true, it's just my own opinion of what a beautiful handwriting looks like, but c'mon, everyone can see that a slick cursive handwriting looks more beautiful than a blocky cutesy (yes even with all the proportions right and balanced) handwriting. Too bad I'm back in my home country now but I'll try to get some sample pics so you can see what I mean. Again, no offence to anyone

I don't know what I'm talking about, but it could have something to do with the fact that Chinese write 100% hanzi, while Japanese script is mixed (50% kanji?) so they get less writing practice for the same amount of writing .

I remember Japanese students of English, back in the eighties, and their handwriting in English was very neat. Then again, they also dressed very conservatively. A whole different generation, I guess. I hope to eventually acquire the beautiful calligraphy I never learned in Spanish. Such beautiful writing, it would be a shame not to learn how to write it beautifully.

Chinese handwriting style can be generalized as more "cursive brushlike", while Japanese is more "blocky cutesy" within the same category of writing style. The "road" primitive makes a perfect example. You are Chinese so it makes sense that the brush like strokes appeal to your aesthetic sensibilities. But there are merits to both writing styles. The original observation alone isn't all that interesting--but ask yourself why Japanese aesthetics prefer "blocky cutesy" over cursive brush strokes and you'll get a deeper understanding of the surrounding Japanese culture.

mafried Wrote:You are Chinese so it makes sense that the brush like strokes appeal to your aesthetic sensibilities.

Who said I was Chinese? Don't make random assumptions if you don't know better pls.

mafried Wrote:but ask yourself why Japanese aesthetics prefer "blocky cutesy" over cursive brush strokes and you'll get a deeper understanding of the surrounding Japanese culture.

How do you know if they 'prefer' to write like that? Unless you're Japanese yourself...

Hey, settle down. I'm sorry, but the OP said "As a foreigner I started studying Japanese in an all Chinese class with classes being taught in Mandarin ofcourse." From the context, guessing you were Chinese was a reasonable assumption, I think.

EDIT: You did say "as a foreigner", but that could have been interpreted in multiple ways.

Well it was just standard meaning of 'foreigner' hehe, no worries.

Musashi Wrote:Well it was just standard meaning of 'foreigner' hehe, no worries.

Everyone is a foreigner somewhere.

True, true, I'm sometimes even a foreigner in my own country! I do. And then I play along hehe