[quote=“Dragonbones”]
Song Huizong’s Shou4jin1 (skinny gold) style. Never cared for it myself; it attracts the eye at first glance but is contrived, superficial and bony, lacks depth, complexity and comfort and VERY soon becomes wearisome. It lacks strength, natural variation and inner beauty.[/quote]
Damn! I’m never, NEVER letting you see my handwriting!! 
Your handwriting is great – I’m so jealous. Mine really looks like a first grader’s writing.
By the way, there are some calligraphy books (I saw one last night at the 2nd hand/remainder store near the entrance to Shi Da Nightmarket) that teach how to read and write calligraphy from the masters. Those might help.
You could do a language exchange with someone and ask them to write things for you. Most people automatically write in that illegible cursive. :+)
Your handwriting beats mine any day! Unless I’m working in boxes, my words are out of proportion (the radicals within the words AND relative to other words). I also admire your tenacity to keep with it. After writing a word two or three times, I get bored and move on to something else.
Same here! (Those who can’t do, criticize. 
)
I believe you mean “components” or “elements”, not radicals, which has a very specific meaning (well, two, depending on which usage you subscribe to).
You mean the 部首 and the other radicals (if any) that make the character?
You mean the 部首 and the other radicals (if any) that make the character?[/quote]
Not quite. First, given that the most common (by far) usage of ‘radical’ is to indicate that bu4shou3, (i.e. bushou is translated as ‘radical’), and given that for any given dictionary a character normally only has one 部首 bùshǒu, i.e. it is only listed in one section, that sentence is a bit nonsensical; it’s like saying ‘the head and the other heads that make up the human body’, when you should be saying ‘the head and the other body parts that make up the human body’.
You have to get away from calling all the parts of characters ‘radicals’. “Radical” does not mean ‘part’ or ‘component’ just as ‘head’ does not mean ‘body part’. You should call the parts, when not referring to their specific functions, ‘parts’, ‘elements’ or ‘components’.
When you do need to refer to the role(s) an element plays, there are two groups of roles, lexicographic (for the purpose of dictionaries), and internal or functional ones (my own terminology, not standard).
Lexicographically, one element is arbitrarily chosen as the one to list it under, along with other characters which also have that element. The characters which contain yan2 言 are generally grouped in the 言 ‘section’ of the dictionary. 言 is the header character under which those are listed. ‘section head or header’ in Chinese is bushou. This usually gets translated into English as ‘radical’ although I prefer ‘section header’ or ‘bushou’ for pedantic reasons. The 部首 bùshǒu may or may not play a semantic role in the character (see below). It may or may not be phonetic (indicate the sound). It may or may not be a naturally occurring sub-component (that is, some are just a stroke or group of strokes pulled out of it for convenience because the dictionary compilers couldn’t figure out what else to list it under).
Internally, portions of a character can be elements added to indicate or clarify sound; or they can be portions added to indicate or clarify meaning. Or they can do both. They may be the original form of the character, and not added bits. Call a part that carries meaning a ‘semantic’ element. There may be more than one. Call a part that carries sound a ‘phonetic’ element. There may be more than one. It is not the case that every character with two parts has exactly one semantic and one phonetic element, although that is often the case.
Back to the 2nd meaning of radical, it’s more of a historical term, so if this confuses you, just ignore it, but basically, early sinologists tried to borrow terminology used to describe how Western words break down into their root and other parts, and so they used the term radical (based on radix or ‘root’) to describe the part of a character which bears the meaning rather than the sound. Nowadays we call those parts ‘semantic’ elements. Since not all 部首 bùshǒu function internally as a semantic (most do, but not all), it’s irrational to translate 部首 bùshǒu as ‘radical’. However, this translation is well established.
One of my adult students (she’s a Chinese teacher at an elementary school) gave me one where you copy the characters from the book, but I have no idea where to get more in Tainan. I’ll check out the Shi-Da nightmarket when I’m in Taipei again. Cheers!
Well, to be honest, the characters are one of the main things that got me interested in Chinese to begin with. I admire them from an artistic point as much as anything. I’ve always loved drawing, so writing out my exercises and characters actually helps me relax…
I know. I’m weird. 
It seems to me that you are trying to imitate the printed characters (ex:characters on a book) with your handwriting. However, it is almost impossible to write characters like that: Because you will most likely using a pen rather than writing calligraphy.
Learning calligraphy is a way to understand different writing styles, however, it’s also possible to develop your own styles. Most of my local friends who write pretty characters found their style for their own rather than using any textbooks or so. The key point is to preserve the character structure, and let the your imagination guide you. 
But I have to say, these are already very nice handwritings.
Actually, also walk the north side of Heping E. Rd. from Shida Rd. to Roosevelt. Along the way there are a couple calligraphy shops, and one of them has a MASSIVE collection of calligraphy books, from cheap stuff for students to expensive, artsy stuff. Budget yourself at least an hour or two to slowly browse, book by book, and bring a couple thou to blow. EDIT: The name is Hui4Feng1Tang2. Sorry, can’t type the Chinese on this borrowed PC. Section 1, #77. The hours might be limited so you should call: 2393-1641-2.
Yes, I know what you mean about practicing characters being relaxing. It is similar to drawing, in a way, which is also relaxing and enjoyable.
As for using a pen instead of brush, well, sure, you’re not going to get the variation in thickness unless you’re using a felt tip and press to varying degrees, but the structures and angles can still be studied and copied using a ball point pen, and you can still make it aesthetically more pleasing.
Check for 2nd hand bookstores near a nearby university. And like DB says, near artist districts.
Dragonbones, thanks for the heads-up regarding “radicals”. So, if I’m understanding it correctly, the bushuo is the main element of the character (found at the top or left). Is this more or less correct?
I had written some Chinese on the board for a translation exercise in one of my classes (a task normally done by the office admin, but they were too busy), and the students immediately cottoned on that something was not “kosher”. They asked who wrote it, and I replied that I wasn’t sure and asked why. They said that it looked “prettier than ‘normal’ writing, but strange”. When I told them I had written it, they were astonished. Apparently I was the first waiguoren they had ever met who could write any Chinese. When I asked how I could improve, they went all Confucian and said that there was no room for improvement. Sigh…
I was going to reply to a post in another thread that has since been closed, saying that you can’t study a language “part-time” or casually. True, it’s not ideal, but it’s like an obese person saying that going for a twenty-minute walk isn’t as good as going for an hour-long jog, so it’s best to just sit and watch television. I have about fifteen to twenty minutes before bed in which I study from a book and practice writing characters, words and sentences. I don’t have the time, money or availability to study in a class full-time, but I have learned a great deal online, from friends and in my personal “Chinese time”. I use the knowledge in my everyday life, and although it is sometimes frustrating and embarrassing that I am not fluent, what I do know improves my life and makes me easier to deal with than someone who does not speak the language.
I’m thinking of setting up a one-to-one tutoring situation with a qualified teacher, but even then I run the risk of “face-saving” compliments when what I really need is constructive criticism. Anyhow, enough rambling for one post…
When I was 20 I met a TW girl of 20 and she spoke little English and almost no Taiwanese. ME I spoke fluent English and fluent Taiwanese and no mandarin. So our thing was i spoke to her in mandarin and she would correct me and teach me the right way. SHe would speak to me in english and i would correct her and teach her how to say things. 3 years later she learned enough english to become a stewardess (i also taught her how to swim) and later on married someone else she met in first class (using her newly learned cantonese from working for Cathay).
So that was that. But , the method works. My mandarin became much better then my Taiwanese, but my English got a bit messed up tho as mandarin messes up your tongue.
Sorry, but no. The bushou is not the “main” element by any stretch of the imagination. It is not the most important element. It is not the original element. It is not necessarily the element conveying meaning (although this is often true). It is not the element conveying sound (although this is occasionaly true). It is not necessarily found at the top or the left, although in many cases this happens to be true.
It is nothing more than a portion (and not necessarily a naturally occuring element) of the character which has been extracted and used to index the character in a dictionary, just as the “a” in “aster” has been used for the purpose of alphabetizing this word in an English dictionary.
And different dictionaries will on occasion (but not commonly) choose a different portion of the character for such indexing. So it is not some invariant, magical part of any character. It’s just the part a particular dictionary editing team decided upon when faced with the decision of “so where the heck in our dictionary do we put this bugbear?”
If you look at an English word like auspicious, it is listed in the dictionary under "a’. It makes no sense to say that ‘a’ is the main part of the word, or that it is the ‘a’ that is THE part that carries the meaning. Similarly, 採 cai3 is listed under 扌. Sure, in this case it is A (not THE) part carrying meaning, but it is a later and purely unnecessary add-on to a character which is already constructed through a combination of elements which through their interaction (hui4yi4) indicate meaning, in this case a hand plucking or harvesting vegetable matter for food. The two elements on the right side, 采 are IMO the ‘main’ part of the character, and are clearly the etymon, the root, just as auspex (gen. auspicis) meaning “augur,” (lit. “one who takes signs from the flight of birds”) is the main and root part of the English word “auspicious”.
Okay, so they’re not necessarily categorized by bushuo, and the bushuo is the original part of the character? Why don’t any of the books I’ve read describe it this way? How have I been living here for this long and remained clueless in this regard? (The last question was purely hypothetical.)
I like that attitude. I think I’m going to take a page out of your book and do some work everyday, even if it’s just 20 or 30 minutes.
Often I go for too long without doing something because I’m too “busy, tired” or whatever…
It’s important to remember – who knows whether you will ever achieve your ultimate goal in Chinese? So why not just enjoy the little steps that you take from day to day, without worrying about exactly how far each one is carrying you towards the far-away destination?
They ARE put in categories or ‘sections’ by bushou, and that is how dictionaries are organized. The bushou is the header of the section, and means ‘section head or header’.
No (I’ve already clearly stated that it is not, by which I mean that that is not what ‘bushou’ means. In some cases it might coincidentally be the original part, but that is not important here). The etymon is the original part of the character, if the character has gone through such an evolutionary path. Some characters exist in one form (A), either with one element or multiple elements, and then later one or more other elements (B, C, etc.) are added. In such a character, A is the etymon.
Most books don’t talk about etymons because they don’t have a clue about real etymology. They take a very shallow and simplistic approach to deconstructing characters, trying to break each 2-part compound into one semantic and one phonetic. But this can be quite misleading.
Take 採. The etymon (original character) is the right half or part (proportionally the right 2/3, actually). This is the main and most important part of the character in my judgement, but there is no formal definition of ‘main part’. The left part was added later, and happens to be the bushou for this compound, which is nothing more than the part used for finding the character in a dictionary. In internal function this left part is a redundant ‘hand’ semantic (the top of the right part is also a hand, but in another form).
If someone doesn’t understand that the right half of 採 is etymonic (i.e. the original character, since the left ‘hand’ was only added later) and that the right half thus carries both the meaning, as a hui4yi4 associative compound, and the sound, then they are likely to commit errors when analyzing the larger compound. For example, you might read in one book that 採 ‘to pluck, gather, harvest’ is made up of one semantic, 扌 shou3, hand, vaguely indicating some manual action, and one phonetic, 采, cai3. That’s a very shallow and not entirely correct analysis – how could the right half not also be semantic, especially since it specifically shows a hand harvesting plant matter, and since it specifically means ‘pluck, gather, harvest’? The right half is a FAR better semantic than the left half, no? So it’s stupid to simply term the right half a ‘phonetic.’
I’m curious to see what your books do say about the term ‘radical’ or ‘bushou’. Can you quote carefully from one or two to show us? Be sure to tell us the title and author, too. Note that there are many badly written books out there by people who don’t have a clue about characters and are happy to just regurgitate fairy tales about why the characters are put together in a particular way. Some of these books are attractively packaged with color pictures or cartoons, and are successfully marketed. On the other hand, the etymologists (those who study the REAL origins of characters) generally keep to themselves and don’t publicize what they know. They are scholars, not marketers.
I recommend you read some of these if you want better info:
DeFrancis, John (1984). ‘‘The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy’’, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6.
Qiú Xīguī (裘錫圭, 2000). ‘‘Chinese Writing.’’ Translation of his 文字學概論 (1988 PRC edition is in simplified Chinese; 1993 Taiwan edition is in traditional Chinese) by the late Gilbert L. Mattos (Chairman, Dept. of Asian Studies, Seton Hall University) and Jerry Norman (Professor Emeritus, Asian Languages & Literature Dept., Univ. of Washington). Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.
Woon, Wee Lee (雲惟利, 1987). ‘‘Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution (漢字的原始和演變)’’ Originally published by the University of East Asia, Macau (no ISBN); reprint by Joint Publishing, jpchk@jointpublishing.com.
Sorry, DB already made the point.
Side note to those who enjoy handwriting – there’s a nice iPhone app out now (free, too!) called Miaohong that gives you endless stocks of those red-outlined calligraphy tracing characters to go over with your fingertip. Shake the iPhone to get a random character to trace. There’s also a button to get the basic info on the character.
Dear Dragonbones,
Yikes! I’m glad I’m not that emperor or I’d be looking for the nearest tall building right about now. 
At least you’re able to appreciate Bismarck’s work.
Yes, that’s the emperor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Huizong_of_Song
Well, I’ll now always remember that his son founded the Southern Song Dynasty.
For those not truly repulsed by Emperor Song’s stuff:
http://www.npm.gov.tw/masterpiece/enlargement.jsp?pic=C2B000001
How about this calligraphic font style? It’s based on the brush work of another sort of Chinese emperor.
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.