Essays
Traced Hanzi for 10,000 Hours? Check the Right Metric
Logging 10,000 hours of tracing feels like mastery, but hours of tracing is the wrong metric. Here is what a dashboard should actually track.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Feel Like a Fraud Because You Can't Handwrite Chinese?
Being fluent in speech but lost without your phone's keyboard does not make you a fraud. Speaking and handwriting are different skills, and the writing one is rebuildable.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
Making Your Chinese Handwriting Look Mature, Not Childish
Mature-looking handwriting reads as fluent and confident, not careful and labored. You can't trace your way to it, because tracing looks effortful. Fluency from memory is what looks grown-up.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Looking for an Inkstone Replacement?
Inkstone was a free, open character-writing app that stopped working on modern devices. Here is what made it good, and what to look for in a current alternative.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
An iPad App to Replace Kids' Hanzi Tracing Books
For school-age children, an interactive app can do what tracing books cannot: hide the character and check recall. Here is when to make the switch, and when paper still wins.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
An iOS Lock-Screen Widget for a Daily HSK Character?
A lock-screen widget showing a daily HSK character is a great habit cue, but tracing it on a tiny widget is recognition, not recall. Use the widget as a prompt and produce from memory in the app.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
An iPad App With Large, Clear Chinese Characters
A big iPad screen with large, high-contrast characters makes writing practice comfortable, especially for older eyes. Here is what to look for, and an honest note on tracing vs recall.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Is Cursive Faster if You Keep Blanking on Characters?
Tempted to learn cursive to write faster despite frequent character amnesia? Cursive needs more mastery, not less. Here is why to fix recall first.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Apple Pencil Hover vs VR Finger Tracing for Hanzi
Is Apple Pencil hover better than VR finger tracing for learning characters? Both are recognition crutches. Here is why from-memory writing beats either gimmick.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Are Chinese Characters Like Object-Oriented Code?
For programmers, Chinese characters click as a system of reusable components and composition. The analogy is genuinely useful, with limits. Here is how it maps.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Apple Watch vs iPad for Writing Hanzi
An Apple Watch is too small for real character practice; an iPad Air is close to ideal. Here is how device size shapes both the practice and the satisfaction.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Is Relying on Stroke Autocomplete Cheating? No, but It Stalls You
Is leaning on stroke autocomplete cheating? It is not a moral issue, but it does stall your learning, because it does your recall for you. Here is the honest take.
Lawrence Arya··5 min