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Honest question: Is there a reccomended font family for learners? (hexbear.net)

submitted 4 months ago by RNAi@hexbear.net to c/languagelearning@hexbear.net

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Hi, I've been learning chinese these last six months. So far I've mostly used the system font in all apps and devices, so when I switch fonts I really struggle to recognize characters, even very familiar ones, but it's probably a very good exercise I think.

Anyways, just like with dislexia (I'm not dislexic) maybe the font can make a difference when learning new words. There's a reddit post that says so but eugh

Btw, I'm still not interested (right now) in practicing manually writing characters, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone yelled at me for not doing so.

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[–] miz@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I'm not going to yell at you, just want to say that writing a character 10 or 20 times is very effective at fixing it in your brain for recognition. even if you never intend to write

one trick that can be helpful is to use your finger to trace it on the table or whatever while you review

[–] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 2 points 4 months ago

Of those I think the bottom two would be my preference bc of the taper on the really short strokes

Particularly for something like the first character in the bottom right a beginner might think some of those strokes are combined without clearer differentiation

[–] poopman69420@hexbear.net 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

楷体 is what they use for elementary schoolers. It's best to start from that. Do you know how strokes work? It seems like you're brute forcing recognizing characters without learning how they're composed if a font change makes recognizing them difficult. Like trying to memorize the spelling of english words without knowing the alphabet.

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%AC%94%E7%94%BB/3040863

Tbh I don't know how you expect to learn only how to read a language w/o knowing how to write it. If you're not gonna learn how to write at least learn a component based input method like 仓颉 or 五笔 so you're learning the actual composition of the characters. If you use PinYin (derogatory) you're literally never gonna learn how to read and write and your pronunciation's going to make zero sense because your brain subconsciously applies english spelling rules and it's not completely phonetically regular anyways.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well I'm following the HelloChinese course which everyone reccomended, and it has a liiitle bit of writing exercises but it's negligible. I'm close to finish the main course and can read interesting-ish short stories.

I wanted to first be able to read and hear chinese fluently enough so I can start "immersing" with stories and eventually real immersing with social media/videos/television (cuz I'm not travelling to actual China anywhen soon sadly).

I knew I eventually would have to start practicing handwriting but right now feels better to no longer suffer when encountering a 就 in a text or audio than being able to elegantly write that character in the correct stroke order. Millions of illiterate people spoke chinese for millenia.

[–] poopman69420@hexbear.net 1 points 4 months ago

Millions of illiterate people spoke chinese for millenia.

"I think someone having the literacy of a feudal peasant is cool and normal in 21st century China"

Get your orientalist bullshit out of here. You people only use this argument against Chinese and never any other language, when the writing system is integral to how the language and culture works more so than any other living language.

[–] LaughingLion@hexbear.net 1 points 4 months ago

Probably bottom left because it has a calligraphy feel to it.