Today I will be exposing my past as someone who did not care about stroke order by comparing actual stroke order to how I used to write some characters. The title of this post is actually not 100% true because sometimes I still write some of these characters incorrectly…it’s just so hard to break old habits.
In retrospect, I think the real stroke order makes a lot of sense thinking about how 少 is written. But I do remember being surprised when I learned I was writing this character incorrectly.
I believe I mentioned in a previous post that I used to write the left half of 那 like 月. And I was also writing the right part wrong too! Fortunately I’ve been very successful in correcting this and now write 那 with the proper stroke order consistently.
For both 北 and 比, I was writing the right component in incorrect order. I also wrote the left part of 比 incorrectly, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I was also messing up the direction of strokes…I can’t remember exactly now.
To this day, the proper stroke order for 长 remains unintuitive to me. But I have been good about following proper stroke order regardless. Honestly, I feel like the character doesn’t look as neat when I use correct stroke order, but I do think like the strokes flow better together.
I find myself having to look up stroke order for this character and characters like 贯 from time to time. It just won’t stick!
This is a small discrepancy, but I honestly feel like it makes a difference in my handwriting. I guess 为 in an exception because it is written like the incorrect way I wrote 力.
I am embarrassed to say I just learned how incorrectly I write this character today. I think I knew I was doing something wrong, but I didn’t realize just how wrong I was. I’m going to have to work on this from now on.
For 我, I’m not 100% sure that the incorrect order above is exactly how I used to write, but it’s close. 我 was always a really challenging character for me, and while I don’t think my current 我s are perfect, I noticed a big improvement when I learned the proper stroke order. The improper 我s above look fine too, but I think it’s because my handwriting is neat in general.
I have known for a long time that I struggle with remembering the stroke order for 里. Since how I’ve always written it is pretty close to the correct order, it’s quite challenging to correct myself.
This one is pretty bad because I even had the wrong number of strokes! How I used to write it was not very natural feeling, so it’s pretty easy for me to remember the proper order.
Last but not least, here are some characters that I was just writing blatantly incorrectly.
I’m very mortified to say that I only realized these discrepancies relatively recently. For 黄 I literally realized it last week. I guess I just didn’t ever look close enough, yikes. 练 is also pretty bad because I’ve always written 锻炼的炼 correctly, so I really have no excuse. With 勇 I feel like it’s quite hard to tell with certain fonts or small text, so that’s the one I’m least ashamed about.
Well, this has been embarrassing. Now I’m going to be paying a lot more attention to stroke order. You can teach an old dog new tricks, but it takes a lot of work. That’s why you should pay attention to stroke order upfront!
Since I read a lot of literature and have been reading purely novels in Korean lately to improve my ability in the language and get a better grasp of sentence structure and reading, I decided to put together a few of my Korean book favourites that if you are learning Korean too, I recommend you give a read if you want to begin improving your reading and translation skills. It may take some time to fully understand them, but perseverance always pays off!
I Have The Right To Destroy Myself [나는 나를 파괴할 권리가 있다] by Kim Young-Ha
This is one of the first fully Korean books I began to read and translate myself and though it is a slow process when you are just a beginner, it’s amazing to see how far you can come. It has a very deep story line and one that will shake you to the core that I really recommend if you want or like a darker plot. This book follows a nameless man who narrates and follows the life of the wounded minds of a dark city.
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly [마당을 나온 암탉] by Hwang Sun-Mi
This was an unusual story for me to read but it was a great choice when it came to studying reading. This was a story lead by a Hen’s perspective and talks on things such as bullying, protectiveness and other life issues. I really enjoyed translating this read, even from an animals mind.
The Vegetarian [채식주의자] by Han Kang
I really love odd concept books so this was a great read for me, but I do know it will not be to everyone’s tastes. Han Kang is a top Korean author and this book follows the perspective of how even the most ordinary people can change very fast. I recommend it nonetheless because it was a great translation.
Our Twisted Hero [우리들의 일그러진 영웅] by Yi Mon-Yol
This novel was also not something I would usually read but it was a very distinct book. It’s narrated by a young boy who moves from a big city to the country and finds his life going in an unexpected direction.
