Essays
Can a Rhythm Game Teach You to Write Chinese?
Rhythm games are brilliant at engagement and built around tracing a visible target, which is the opposite of recall. Here is what they teach, and what they cannot.
Lawrence Arya··6 min
Essays
Is It Cringe to Love Tracing Beautiful Hanzi?
Hooked on tracing pretty character fonts and feeling self-conscious? It is fine, enjoying the beauty is legitimate. Here is how to make that love build real skill.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Crypto Payouts for Flawless Tracing? Wrong on Two Counts
Paying crypto tokens for flawless tracing rewards the wrong thing twice: tracing isn't recall, and chasing flawless punishes the errors you learn from. Here is what actually builds writing.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Are Tracing Apps Bad for Deep Memory?
Tracing apps feel productive but rarely commit characters to deep memory. Here is why tracing builds shallow recognition and what does build lasting recall.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Custom Font Upload to Tracing Paths: What Is Realistic
Turning an uploaded font into traceable stroke paths is harder than it sounds: font outlines are not stroke skeletons. Here is what is realistic, and why tracing is a scaffold.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
A Trace-to-Unlock Daily Hanzi Lock Screen: Good Idea?
A lock screen that makes you trace a daily character before unlocking is a clever habit nudge, but tracing to unlock is recognition, and it gets gamed. A from-memory prompt works better.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
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
Daily Mandarin Writing Streaks (Beyond Tracing)
A daily streak is a great habit anchor, but a tracing streak builds the wrong skill. Here is how to keep the daily habit while practising recall, not just tracing.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
A Beautiful Indie Game for Tracing Chinese Vocabulary?
Want a shanshui-aesthetic indie game to learn Chinese by tracing vocabulary? Beauty motivates, but tracing builds recognition. Here is how to get both.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Tracing Components Leaves a Gap; Testing Them Closes It
Tracing a character's components teaches you to recognize them, not produce them, which leaves a gap. Testing each component from memory closes it, and works offline in ADHD-friendly bites.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
A Skritter Alternative: Beyond the Guitar Hero Problem
Tracing prompts on Skritter can feel like Guitar Hero: you hit the cues, but that's not playing the song from memory. Here is why, and what a from-memory alternative looks like.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
Practicing Bible-Verse Characters in Chinese the Right Way
Want to practice the Chinese characters in Bible verses through repetition? Meaningful text is great motivation, but tracing builds recognition. Here is the fix.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Can a VR Headset Teach You to Write Hanzi?
Tracing traditional characters in VR space sounds magical, but does it build real handwriting? Here is the honest case for and against, and what works today.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Dictation vs Free Tracing: Which Tests Writing?
Is dictation really worse than free tracing for testing characters? It depends on definitions, and the usual assumption is backwards. Here is what the science says.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Calligraphy Tracing on iPad Pro vs Writing Recall
Looking for a digital calligraphy tracing app for iPad Pro? Here is the honest difference between brush-art tracing and writing-recall practice, and which tool fits which goal.
Lawrence Arya··5 min