Handwriting and Languages

[wolfette]

Do you find your handwriting changes depending on the language you're writing in? I tend to find that mine does change. In English I'm not so careful and my handwriting can become a bit sloppy but if I'm writing in other languages then I tend to write the letters a lot more carefully. This may be because when I'm writing I'm having to think a bit more about what I'm writing in other languages than I do in English so I naturally take more time. 

[Teira Eri]

The two writing styles I'm proficient in, Japanese and English, are extremely different. Obviously, the strokes to write kanji take way more time than jotting down alphanumeric characters. But, regardless, my penmanship has never faltered. I don't know if it's just because I'm rather meticulous, yet I'm always getting comments from English and Japanese alike about how clean, pretty and proper my handwriting is. It's not because I'm slow either.

My all-time two favorite comments on my handwriting were, "Your handwriting is so perfect it's disgusting" and "This is handwritten? I thought it was typed!"

I do know some people, though, who have more sloppy Japanese characters than English and vice versa. One Japanese teacher of mine wrote illegible Japanese on the whiteboard, but her English characters were amazingly clean-cut. Individual ticks remain evident though, like a person who rounds their characters tends to do so for any alphabet. 

[Chris_A]

My handwriting does not change either, regardless in which language I write. I think your handwriting is a completely different aspect from how many languages you can speak, it always remains the same.

[darkchild]

That sounds strange to me but I cannot conclude because I rarely or never write in another language other than English and I have a habit of holding my pens in an Italic fashion so my words slant to the right.

I'm sure my writings would not differ between languages. 

[ailsaurus]

Yes mine does! It differs mainly not because of my hands or writing habits, but simply because the writing systems differ. My Indonesian handwriting is pretty much the same as English and German, however I write Chinese and Arabic... differently. Now this sounds extremely obvious and not so important xD

[SoManyLanguages]

My handwriting doesn't really seem to change. The only time I've seen myself have trouble is when I am writing certain letters in the Lithuanian alphabet, and it's mostly because I am not used to writing those letters. Also, I find it very hard to write that one German letter that resembles a B. No matter what I do, it just looks like a standard B.

Though, when I am writing in German, I tend to go much slower, and think out my words more. In English, my handwriting more resembles chicken scrawl because my brain moves way too fast for its own good.

[sillylucy]

I find that it does when I am writing English and Spanish! I write super sloppy and quick in English and my penmanship is very neat when I write in Spanish because I am making sure that I am getting everything right. I am more precise when I write in Spanish.

[lushlala]

Hmm that's very interesting! But i can't say I've noticed that about myself at all, unless it's something I've just not paid much attention to LOL I'll have to start observing and seeing if that theory holds true. That'd be very strange. But I guess if there's the theory that people can make different decisions based on what language they think in (which I still maintain doesn't apply to me), then this shouldn't be too far outside of the realm of reality. I've certainly heard stranger things!

[Lingua Franca]

My handwriting is the same in all the languages that I write in. It doesn't change. I can see why you might feel that it does but i don't think it's the writing style but rather the amount of time you spend writing, if you had to take the same amount of time writing in English it probably would look the same.

[AExAVF]

I notice a great deal of difference when writing in English and Japanese.  I have no problem with my handwriting in the English language, but my handwriting in Japanese appears to be irregular, especially in the kanji and to some extent, in the hiragana.  By irregular, I mean it to be the size of the letters I am writing, as I write my Japanese texts in larger characters on a graphing notebook.  Writing in kanji takes so much space on my notebook because I want to make sure that I have gotten the strokes correctly.  I am hesitant to write my Japanese on the same level as my English, because it will be difficult to see the strokes in the kanji.

[lushlala]

I'm guessing I'd probably write differently if I were writing a language that uses script as opposed to regular letters of the alphabet, though. That to me is a little different, but correct me if I'm wrong LOL I just feel for languages like Chinese and Japanese, you need to be neater and a lot more precise. I've often even wondered if for those languages there's such a thing as bad handwriting? I say this because to me, it always looks more like art than writing, and quite frankly, I've never seen any that was untidy and messy. I'm actually curious to know from those who are familiar with languages that use script, if they agree or disagree; please enlighten me either way  

[sidney]

I speak 2 languages, but both are in standard ABC form, so my handwriting tends to be the same when I write in either one of them. But if you are trying to learn Mandarin or Arabic for example, then for sure you will have to change your handwriting.

[kimseokjin]

My handwriting doesn't seem to change when I switch from writing in English to Korean... it's still the same sloppy cursive. *Sometimes* I'll make more of an effort to write neater if I'm taking notes in a foreign language, but it's more of an OCD thing if anything.