Rating: 
Summary: Do Not Try This At Home (without this text!!)
Review: I have just started learning to write Chinese characters and THIS is the holy grail of beiginners' books. I looked through many listmania and reviews on Amazon.com's site (thank you ALL!) and decided to start with this primer. As a hands-on learner, I know now why it has been recommended so highly by those who teach, speak, or are just learning the Chinese language.I am reminded of the first days in school when we had to practice writing our ABCs on a tablet with pencil. We wrote those damned letters over and over again, didn't we? The teacher stood at the blackboard and showed us the best way to make the lines and the order of the "character's strokes." This book is the Mrs. Hatfield of my first grade class in Chinese. Each stroke is shown carefully. Each stroke is also shown when it is not written correctly and gives the "name" of the error (eg. "fish hook, etc.) Tao only knows how a Swedish author conceived of and wrote such a wonderful primer to the language. It makes sense, however, that a person whose first language is NOT Chinese would be so specific about the right and wrong way to hold the pen, use the correct posture and table angle, and keep "between the lines." I don't get too hard on myself when I can't make a character look the way they does in the book. I look back at how I wrote my name in first grade and now understand the true meaning of "penmanship". The author urges the learner to practice each stroke at least one hundred times until you go on to the next stroke. Add them together and you get a beautiful character. Don't practice each stroke individually over the course of days and many sheets of paper, and the character resemble the rough letters I wrote in my first grade homeworlk. DO NOT attempt to do this at home (learn to write Chinese characters) without this very important primer. It is invaluable, extraordinary, and shows a great deal of thought and study by the author and those who assisted him in compiling this material. I do my 100 + strokes a day. I don't jump ahead and do what I thought I could do -- "Oh that character looks easy, it's just an upside down Y." I know this edition will get dog eared and I will probably buy another to replace this text. It has no equal. Aside from the friends in China who supported me and applaud me for learning their language, this small text tells me that I CAN learn a language and fulfill a longtime dream. Hurrah! and thank you, Mr. Bjorksten. from Lodro Dawa, my Buddhist nickname.
(Someday I will learn to write it AND learn its lesson for wisdom in this lifetime.)
Rating: 
Summary: Useful even for beginning learners
Review: I like _Learn to Write Chinese Characters_ a lot, though I think the title is deceptive--it isn't a textbook that will teach you stroke order and meaning of a full range of characters, it's a guide to writing Chinese elegantly. If you've never written characters before, this book is intimidating. Most students of Chinese want to write legibly without doing calligraphy. That said, I've still found the book very useful. It's difficult to write characters that look at all acceptable without paying attention to at least some of the principles set forth in it. Author and translator manage to give you a sense of what's distinctive about Chinese characters that tends to be lacking in textbooks. A fun book for learners, but I'd advise that one start writing with textbook aid and then look at the book for help.
Rating:
Summary: Not a primer, but good in its own right
Review: I'm learning Chinese as part of my major and wanted a good book on characters, specifically for things like stroke order, and picked this up expecting it to be a practical tutorial on how to write basic Chinese characters. What it actually is is more of a guidebook for calligraphy. Now, as that, it is very good. The author definitely conveys the mindset one needs to be a skilled calligrapher, and gives great step by step instructions on how to write well. For that, I don't regret picking this up. However, if you, like myself, are more concerned with learning how to write the 2000 or so most used characters towards the end of being functionally literate in Chinese, this is not the book to purchase. It would be something like teaching calligraphy to kindergarten students. Also, the stroke order illustrations for the characters towards the end of the book, while representing commonly used characters, are really small, and presume that you've gone through the prior half of the book as recommended, that is practicing each stroke for a half hour a day until mastered. If you're learning calligraphy for it's own sake, or just have lots of time, this is great. If however you need to develop a functional writing ability in Chinese relatively quickly, I would personally recommend buying another book first and coming back to this.
Rating: 
Summary: wrong stroke order
Review: The author is unfortunately unaware of the correct calligraphic stroke order that's been used for many centuries and still is used for calligraphy, though it's not used in schools in China or Taiwan now. What am I talking about? You don't always follow the "horizontal before vertical" rule and that is very important for both speed and aesthetics -- and I think this is very helpful for foreigners who will never end up writing characters as much as a little kid does in school.. Take a proper calligraphy class. Look at masterpieces in books or museums and often you can follow the stroke order.
A few examples: if you write tian2 'field' (or any characters containing it) the third stroke is vertical not horizontal. If you write wang2 'king' (or any characters containing it) the second stroke is vertical. If you write li3 'neighborhood; 1/2km' (or any characters containing it) the fifth stroke is vertical. I assure you, absolutely no real calligrapher would write them otherwise. There are a number of other very common characters/character building blocks (sheng1 'give birth', qing1 'green', shu1 'book', and zhui1 'short-tailed bird' come to mind, among a number of other not often repeated characters) where the stroke order is different in calligraphy from what is taught in schools in Taiwan and China (for the convenience of teachers?) as well as in all the books I've seen for foreigners to learn characters (though Rita Choy's books use some of the calligraphic stroke order). Problem is Mr. Bjorksten claims to be writing a book about calligraphy. No matter with a brush or a fountain pen or a ballpoint pen, chalk, crayons, or chicken grease -- there is a standard stroke order for calligraphy and this book is ignorant of it.
What he does right is to provide well written characters as a model and point out something about spacing and such.
But he gets very caught up in the idea of correctly written strokes/characters. Look at masterpieces of calligraphy, even kaishu. Their are plenty of bad/wrong strokes. Yes, there is a certain shape that is vaguely considered standard, but early on your teacher will tell you not to write 'perfect' characters. In fact, perfect characters are not so. Just as we say an old antique's wear marks give it character, so it is with Chinese calligraphy: too perfect is not good. Sure you should practice kaishu, but no one ever writes the way his teacher did in the book in real life with a pen. But people -- including top notch calligraphers and painters -- do write (with a pen or a brush) what he calls the wrong way. Ah, but the bones must be strong no matter how you write. It's no different for a pen. Calligraphy is after all, an expressive art.
There are also a number of smaller errors. No, you shouldn't practice a character 100 times in a row, unless you're a masochist. No, dialects are not the same when written.
I gave him 1 star because stroke order is that important and because he wrote this as a calligraphy book. If he wrote a book on driving and didn't mention steering or braking, then it's a one star book. As mentioned above, had this been just another character book for foreigners, that would have been different, since nearly all (all?) do it wrong.
Fred Wang's _Introduction to Chinese Cursive Script_ can introduce you to xingcao. In Taipei, Hui4Feng1Tang2 (among others) has stuff for kaishu and xingshu with a pen. Or you can take a calligraphy class in Taiwan, China, or Japan.
Rating:
Summary: wrong stroke order
Review: The author is unfortunately unaware of the correct calligraphic stroke order that's been used for many centuries and still is used for calligraphy. It's not used in schools in China and Taiwan, though all Japanese still only know the calligraphic stroke order. What am I talking about? You don't always follow the "horizontal before vertical" rule and that is very important for both speed and aesthetics. Take a proper calligraphy class. Look at masterpieces in books or museums and often you can follow the stroke order. A few examples: if you write 'field' -- tian2 -- (or any characters containing it) the third stroke is vertical not horizontal. If you write 'king' -- wang2 -- (or any characters containing it) the second stroke is vertical. If you write 'neighborhood; 1/2km' -- li3 -- (or any characters containing it) the fifth stroke is vertical. I assure you, absolutely no real calligrapher would write them otherwise. There are a number of other very common characters/character building blocks (sheng1 'give birth', qing1 'green', and zhui1 'short-tailed bird' come to mind) where the stroke order is different in calligraphy from what is taught in schools in Taiwan and China (for the convenience of teachers) as well as in all the books I've seen for foreigners to learn characters (though Rita Choy mostly uses the calligraphic stroke order). Problem is Mr. Bjorksten claims to be writing a book about calligraphy. No matter with a brush or a fountain pen or a ballpoint pen, chalk, crayons, or chicken grease -- there is a standard stroke order for calligraphy and this book is ignorant of it. What he does right is to provide well written characters as a model and point out something about spacing and such. But he gets very caught up in the idea of correctly written strokes/characters. Look at masterpieces of calligraphy, even kaishu. Their are plenty of bad/wrong strokes. Yes, there is a certain shape that is vaguely considered standard, but early on your teacher will tell you not to write 'perfect' characters. In fact, perfect characters are not so. Just as we say an old antique's wear marks give it character, so it is with Chinese calligraphy: too perfect is not good. Sure you should practice kaishu, but no one ever writes the way his teacher did in the book in real life with a pen. But people -- including top notch calligraphers and painters -- do write (with a pen or a brush) what he calls the wrong way. Ah, but the bones must be strong no matter how you write. It's no different for a pen. Calligraphy is after all, an expressive art. There are also a number of smaller errors. No, you shouldn't practice a character 100 times in a row, unless you're a masochist. No, dialects are not the same when written. I gave him 1 star because stroke order is that important and because he wrote this as a calligraphy book. If he wrote a book on driving and didn't mention steering or braking, then it's a one star book. As mentioned above, had this been just another character book for foreigners, that would have been different, since nearly all (all?) do it wrong. Fred Wang's _Introduction to Chinese Cursive Script_ can introduce you to xingcao. In Taipei, Hui4Feng1Tang2 (among others) has stuff for kaishu and xingshu with a pen. Or you can take a calligraphy class in Taiwan, China, or Japan. All the Japanese kanji books for foreigners I've seen have the correct stroke order (except for 'grass' on the top of characters, since they use the simplified form; as four strokes it should be down-across-across-down). Try Florence Sakade's _Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese_ if you wish. Of course, don't confuse yourself with the Japanese definitions!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful for Learning to Write Chinese
Review: This book is wonderful! It contains useful beginning lessons on writing materials, stroke names with information of writing them (showing examples of common mistakes), and stroke order. It then gives advice on the best ways to practice, and it even has a poem to study at the end of the book. The catalog of characters is wonderful by showing the stroke order in both traditional and simplified forms, with pinyin (with a guide at the end on pronunciation).
This book is a "must have" for anyone beginning to learn to write Chinese characters.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful for Learning to Write Chinese
Review: This book is wonderful! It contains useful beginning lessons on writing materials, stroke names with information of writing them (showing examples of common mistakes), and stroke order. It then gives advice on the best ways to practice, and it even has a poem to study at the end of the book. The catalog of characters is wonderful by showing the stroke order in both traditional and simplified forms, with pinyin (with a guide at the end on pronunciation).
This book is a "must have" for anyone beginning to learn to write Chinese characters.
Rating:
Summary: A book perfect in its kind
Review: This book should be at the head of everyone's list, since it is devoted to a skill which almost all sinologists neglect, whether professional or amateur, and yet is one that is the source of enormous pleasure and gratification - the ability to form Chinese Characters (Jpn. kanji) well. It is a short manual of just 122 pages which, after a brief account of the history and structure of characters, some instruction on how to look them up in a dictionary, and a little about their aesthetics, goes on to teach the user all of the main strokes by using the radicals as models. The book ends with a short list of suggested readings, and a brief guide to Chinese pronunciation. Unlike most other manuals of Chinese Calligraphy, which teach the student how to write with the traditional brush, this teaches the art of writing with a pen, and the models Bjorksten provides for copying, unlike those in many other manuals written for Westerners, are excellent. A book perfect in its kind, and not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Start with this book.
Review: This book teaches the principles of sound and beautiful writing - the names of the strokes, the order in which they are written, aesthetic principles, and the common radicals. Then it provides a famous poem to practice with, and a list of a hundred common characters, sorted by frequency of usage. When the simplified character differs from the traditional, both are given. Transliterations are in pin-yin. This is far and away the best book I've found for learning to write the characters. I regretted the transition away from this book to other resources, principally because other resources usually use the printed form that ignores the aesthetic principles and turns beauty into ugliness. That sounds harsh, doesn't it? But it's true! If you're going to learn to write, start with this book, so you won't have to go back later to correct bad habits.
Rating:
Summary: Start with this book.
Review: This book teaches the principles of sound and beautiful writing - the names of the strokes, the order in which they are written, aesthetic principles, and the common radicals. Then it provides a famous poem to practice with, and a list of a hundred common characters, sorted by frequency of usage. When the simplified character differs from the traditional, both are given. Transliterations are in pin-yin. This is far and away the best book I've found for learning to write the characters. I regretted the transition away from this book to other resources, principally because other resources usually use the printed form that ignores the aesthetic principles and turns beauty into ugliness. That sounds harsh, doesn't it? But it's true! If you're going to learn to write, start with this book, so you won't have to go back later to correct bad habits.
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