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Comment by pxc | Hacker News Reader

How many WPM can the average Japanese adult write by hand?

Are kanji more efficient to write out than phonetic writing systems, or is proficiency with them more valued for tradition's sake?

Is almost everyone a word-processor idiot these days?

When I think of writing things by hand in English, it's hard to ever really want to do it. I type literally 10x faster than I can write, and when I write I cramp super quickly. In my life, at least, handwriting is obsolete.

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I still prefer to write out mathematical proofs sloppily (and with a lot of the nitty-gritty details missing) in a scrap notebook, then write it more nicely (filling in all details) on computer printer paper, and then (if I think it's useful to somebody) writing it in Latex. I probably write too much, but it's just the way I'm used to doing calculations and proof-of-concepts. I also like the different styles and aesthetics that can be employed in handwriting. My handwriting ranges from incredibly sloppy (when I don't really care or just want to go fast) to very, very neat.

I very much agree. Doing math involves a lot of fiddling with equations, fixing, and playing around with drawings. When doing that on the computer, I would waste most of my time fighting the word processor instead of thinking about the math.

Using a Wacom tablet as 99% substitute for mouse has been life changing to me. Literally the only thing preventing me from disconnecting my mouse is that I can't scroll websites with my tablet.

It still doesn't feel as good as paper, but the freedom of just drawing on Krita and being able to select stuff and move it around more than makes up for it.

Can't recommend it enough.

> I type literally 10x faster than I can write, and when I write I cramp super quickly.

Because you don't do it enough to keep those muscles in training, and because you use the wrong tools when you do.

A $20 Pilot Metropolitan is more than enough to discover how pleasant longhand can be when done with a tool that's designed specifically for that purpose, in a way ballpoints and pencils are not. It'll teach you to stop ramming the point into the paper, too, which is the other reason why writing makes your hand hurt.

I have a fancy fountain pen and was taught Gregg shorthand by my grandmother and have used it for note taking for most of my life. I still type 50%-75% faster than I write and can type for significantly longer than I can write.

If I learned how to use a stenotype I can imagine the discrepancy would be even larger.

My quote's a little more widely scoped than is useful; speed does improve with practice, but not that much, and isn't really what makes the skill valuable in any case. Far too late to edit, alas.

I always use good ol' mechanical pencils, particularly Twist Erase or BiC with 0.7 lead.

I do love a Twist-Erase in 0.7 for a pencil, but these days I only use a pencil when I'm marking cuts or otherwise doing work too harsh for a more delicate instrument.

I find roller ball pens to be almost as good, but easier to maintain (my fountain pen at work would be dry after leaving it cap-on over the weekend).

Use a different pen, maybe, or add an O-ring to the section or something. A capped pen should take weeks to dry out, not days.

Rollerballs are a decent second best - I keep them for lenders and for backup in case I'm caught without a spare cartridge. That said, they definitely don't come close to my Decimo or E95s.

One advantage of kanji is writing long tweets. You can say a lot in 140 characters when most words are 2-4 characters.

Syllabic notation is harder to understand, someone talked about it above, syntactical boundaries are harder to parse, and the language’s functional parts - things like tenses and inflections, are mostly written in kana, the rest mostly in kanji.

This article (featured previously on HN) discusses the efficiency thing a bit - https://yakkomajuri.com/blog/language-efficiency - though I think the pixel count metric is meaningless and leads to weird conclusions, there are some good thoughts.

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