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I'm using something similar to Heisig, and I can already tell that while I can list all of the radicals and components in a character, I have no memory of their relative positions. I'm also not trying to learn them and I only using a pinyin input method, but I can't imagine really needing to be able to write by hand ever.

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If you're not actually writing out the characters, you're not using Heisig. You wouldn't have that issue if you were actually writing them out. And it's not the wrote practice, it's the fact that you intrinsically must write one primitive at a time, which solidifies the order in the story. Most Heisig students end up developing slightly different primitive meanings for different placements, or an aspect of the story which controls the layout, for that reason.

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