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Gulao -

One of my classmates in high school wrote Chinese left handed, and didn't seem to have much
trouble. From time to time she would ask if it were possible to fix a character's stroke order to
make the character more natural for her, but for the most part it wasn't necessary.



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DoraYao -

I am left-handed too and have no problem with strokes.










renzhe -

I write left-handed too, and use the proper stroke order.

Since I'm close to ambidextrous (can write a with my right hand and the left-right preference is
almost split down the middle with me, depending on the task at hand), I have considered learning
to write Chinese characters right-handed, but it seemed too silly considering that I write
everything else with my left hand.

The characters will probably look a bit different. Right-handed horizontal strokes tend to slope
slightly upward, which is difficult to reproduce with the left hand, and that's one example. But
it really doesn't play that much of a role, you can write well with the left hand too.

Perhaps one day, I'll try to write with my right hand too. It's quite funny, I can write the Latin
alphabet with my right hand, it just looks a bit uglier and takes a bit longer, but I have no
difficulty doing it -- though I have spent very little time practicing this. I can also take a
left-handed guitar and play chords and scales although I have never practiced this either. I think
that left-handed people find it easier to do things with both hands than right-handed people.
Perhaps because so many things in our lives are designed for right-handed people, so we get ample
practice.










fireball9261 -

I am right-handed, and I always smudged my writings in the traditional ways (up and down, then
right to left) when I was a kid. So I always wished to be left-handed.










JimmySeal -

I'm left handed and I started learning to write Asian characters about 8 years ago. It has never
been a problem when writing with a pencil or pen, but I've found it all but impossible to make
characters look good when using a brush or long-tipped pen. In those cases, the push vs. pull
distinction really comes into play.

I started brush-calligraphy classes last February and I use my right hand exclusively for those. I
just feel there's no other way.

I would suggest at least encouraging your daughter to try writing with her right hand every now
and then. Right-handedness is a very useful skill in the 漢字文化圏.

I'm also in favor of using the correct stroke order, no matter which hand she's using to write.










Hero Doug -

It's a little off topic now, but in response to the many people who are saying don't worry about
stroke order, I'm going to say the exact opposite, I'm joining the other's who say it's important.

I read an excellent summary on here (can't find who wrote) about stroke order.

Get a pen and paper, and write the letter a (lowercase).

From what we've been taught, we start at the top, round down and to the left to make the belly,
and go up and down at the right to make the straight edge.

Write it again, but this time start at the top and make the straight edge first, then make the
rounded belly last.

They'll both be legible, but the first one (that is done naturally) will look better.

After I bought a program to teach stroke order I saw noticeable improvement instantly.

For these reasons I'd avoid encouraging your daughter to invent her own stroke order.










renzhe -

I absolutely disagree with imposing a stroke order on the Latin characters.

First of all, it definitely depends on your handedness. Such "rules" for right-handed people
result in difficult writing patterns for left-handed people, especially when writing fast.

Secondly, different places have different conventions. There are numerous ways to write Latin
characters. The Romans didn't leave instructions on which stroke comes first, or in which
direction it should go. I guarantee you that the "proper stroke order" some people teach in
Germany is completely different than the one taught in the US or France, or even in a different
school in a different city. They are all arbitrary. A character written in a different order looks
different, it doesn't look WRONG.

Chinese characters are obviously different, for reasons such as brush calligraphy, stroke count
and stroke-order dictionary lookup, etc.










Hero Doug -

The point of my post wasn't about writing Latin characters, it was about writing Chinese
characters.

I used an 'a' because everyone here is reading and writing English, so everyone should be familier
with the letter 'a'.

Secondly, I posted that to illustrate that if you write something in a different order then it's
usually written in, then you may end up with something that looks different then it should. What
it should look like, if what you say is true, is subjective. I was obvisouly writing that from my
perspective.

But as far as I know, in China the children are taught how to write characters one of a few ways.
So if you also learn how to write characters in one of those ways then chances are that Chinese
people won't have as much trouble reading what you write because it fit's one of the standards.

And I'm saying the same thing holds true for Latin letters, or any other way of writing, the more
you deviate from the standard the harder it is going to be to read what you write.










dannydy -

i'm also a leff-handed,it seemed wouldnt have much problem for me to writing the order of the
chinese character stroke. But in fact, the earlier of writing character on the paper was from left
side to right side.












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