8 ms·
In Japan I believe the (true and only correct) way to hold a pen is taught and emphasized from a young age, while the United States maintains a "do it your way"
by hatmatrix 7y ago
In Japan I believe the (true and only correct) way to hold a pen is taught and emphasized from a young age, while the United States maintains a "do it your way" mentality about it. It may have to do with chopsticks requiring similar precision or that it is difficult to follow the detailed prescriptions for writing Chinese characters otherwise - I'm just speculating here.
- konart 7y agoSame in Russia, to a lesser defgree. For pens\penls\forks\knives. My grip was always 'right' but I clearly remember my father commenting every time he saw a person holding his tool the wrong way. To him me doing it the right way was like a little victory or something.
- simplegeek 7y agoWhat's the preferred grip taught in Russia?
- Grue3 7y agoI don't remember being taught how to grip a pen correctly. I'm pretty sure my grip is wrong too, since I developed a callus on my index finger from writing too much during school. FWIW I grip like "dynamic tripod grip" on "figure 3", except the thumb is perpendicular to the pen.
- konart 7y agoSomething like this: https://ds04.infourok.ru/uploads/ex/07fb/00195c5a-00265f89/640/img1.jpg https://ds04.infourok.ru/uploads/ex/07fb/00195c5a-00265f89/6... But general idea is that you have to do simple exercises with a kid before school so that a kid won't be just clenching a pen like they usually do with a spoon when they a small. We even have a short poem for breaks during such exercises. :D Something like this: We were writting, we were writting, Our fingers got all tired. Gonna get a little rest Then we'll pick from where we left.
- davchana 7y agoIn India Punjab, I learned to jold the pencil between thumb, index & middle finger. Imagine these three finger ends touching each other with ends at same plane, & touching from opposite of nails side. Now imagine a pencil between these three, with thumb & index fingers' opposite of nail side touching the pencil; & pencil resting on left of middle finger nail side.
- diffeomorphism 7y agoOn a related note, there are pens whose grip is shaped to teach/enforce the "correct" way. For example the Pilot penmanship or many Lamy fountain pens are popular ones. That said, teaching handwriting is surprisingly very country specific. For example, in Germany proper grip and writing with a fountain pen was something you were taught in elementary school (I think now less emphasized) and simple cursive. In the US they seem to instead prefer throwaway pens and seemingly hard to read cursive.
- vinay427 7y agoWhat's different about German cursive? I live in a German-speaking country now and I haven't really noticed any defining differences where I am, though I also wasn't looking for them. Throwaway ballpoint pens seem to be the norm at least in university settings here, in my experience.
- gcthomas 7y agoWorking in an international school, I find that my German students routinely have the best formed handwriting of all. Many use Lamy pens. Chinese writing (in English) is easy to read, since they don't usually do joined up writing, and craft each letter.
- diffeomorphism 7y agoThe American one is much more extravagant/different from printed letters: https://www.behance.net/gallery/48963623/american-cursive-handwriting https://www.behance.net/gallery/48963623/american-cursive-ha... In this sense it is more similar to the older German Sütterlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin or Spencerian script. Looks pretty, but very, very hard to read if you are not used to it. The German one switched to a much more simple "Ausgangsschrift" after 1941 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ausgangsschrift#Ausgangsschriften_seit_1941 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ausgangsschrift#Ausgangsschrif... My impression in the US was that there you are taught cursive in school, hate it and then never use it again.
- 7y ago
- simplegeek 7y agoInteresting. I am curious. What's the pen grip taught in Japan?
- dwg 7y agoRelaxed forefinger, not bent inward like the authors original grip. The reason is that vertical downward strokes are made by bending the index forefinger downward. Here is more detail (in Japanese): https://youtu.be/0RlXSbI0YAc https://youtu.be/0RlXSbI0YAc
- OJFord 7y ago(I don't speak Japanese but) That seems the same as I was taught for writing English in the UK. I'm sure a child using 'Correct #3' of OP would have been corrected. (Computers existed throughout my schooling; I'm pretty sure handwriting's still taught. Mine is of course unpracticed and poor.)
- dwg 7y agoI’ve studied ペン字 a bit (the art of writing Japanese with a pen instead of a brush as was traditionally done). Grip is emphasized as bad grip makes it very difficult to write beautifully: certain strokes become crooked and/or shaky. Posture is also emphasized. I don’t think it has as much to do with chopsticks as children are generally proficient with chopsticks before they can write in my experience.
- hrktb 7y agoAs dwg says, there is an optimisation of the grip for what is seen as good writing. The interesting part is that stroke count and order is important, sometimes more important than the exact resulting shapes. That puts an emphasis on how the letters are written, and changes the tradeoffs between precision and fluidity.
- aidenn0 7y agoIn primary school in the US, we had a chart very similar to the one linked from TFA showing how to hold a pen.