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Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

sciencealert.com

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Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#21

Post by stevesimmons »

gowld wrote: post #13
MAGZine wrote: post #3

I totally get this. If I need to focus and truly understand something, there is no replacement for writing. Keyboards are fast, but the interaction patterns frequently devolve to almost squirrely behaviour. rapid movements, editing, and fleeting thoughts. It encourages you to move from one thought to the next as quickly as possible. Our MODE of measurement when typing is measured in WPM--how quickly you can output te…

OTOH, of you do need to keep up (with a lecture, for example), handwriting hurts because you don't have time to finish.

This will get easier if you summarise the main points, write quicker (a skill you can practice), and do it with minimal looking down at your page.

Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#22

Post by kstrauser »

That's great. Alternatively, after a few decades of wishing otherwise, I've accepted that for me the decision is between take notes via typing and don't take notes.

I fully get the value of handwriting things. I wish it weren't physically painful for me to write more than a paragraph, but it is, and has been since I was a kid. (And I've tried literally everything I could find to "fix" that. It's not from lack of trying.) Instead, I'm stuck in the second rate world of typing my notes like a peasant, shackled with vast tooling that lets me selectively encrypt sensitive parts, sync them across all my devices, instantly search through everything, turn notes into reminders with a tap of a button, and otherwise just barely scrape by.

I get it. I'm cheating myself by not scribbling my thoughts onto a dead tree (or a Remarkable, etc.). I'm OK with that.

Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#24

Post by kstrauser »

MAGZine wrote: post #3

I totally get this. If I need to focus and truly understand something, there is no replacement for writing. Keyboards are fast, but the interaction patterns frequently devolve to almost squirrely behaviour. rapid movements, editing, and fleeting thoughts. It encourages you to move from one thought to the next as quickly as possible. Our MODE of measurement when typing is measured in WPM--how quickly you can output te…

iA Writer in typewriter focus mode is great for me this way. It encourages me to treat a document as append-only until I'm completely finished writing it.

Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#25

Post by slowmovintarget »

kstrauser wrote: post #22

That's great. Alternatively, after a few decades of wishing otherwise, I've accepted that for me the decision is between take notes via typing and don't take notes . I fully get the value of handwriting things. I wish it weren't physically painful for me to write more than a paragraph, but it is, and has been since I was a kid. (And I've tried literally everything I could find to "fix" that. It's not from lack of try…

Gives side-eye in fountain pen.

I really do prefer fountain pen on nice paper, but there are times where you just need software.

Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#26

Post by [deleted] »

kstrauser wrote: post #22

That's great. Alternatively, after a few decades of wishing otherwise, I've accepted that for me the decision is between take notes via typing and don't take notes . I fully get the value of handwriting things. I wish it weren't physically painful for me to write more than a paragraph, but it is, and has been since I was a kid. (And I've tried literally everything I could find to "fix" that. It's not from lack of try…

[deleted]

Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#27

Post by kstrauser »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #25
kstrauser wrote: post #22

That's great. Alternatively, after a few decades of wishing otherwise, I've accepted that for me the decision is between take notes via typing and don't take notes . I fully get the value of handwriting things. I wish it weren't physically painful for me to write more than a paragraph, but it is, and has been since I was a kid. (And I've tried literally everything I could find to "fix" that. It's not from lack of try…

Gives side-eye in fountain pen. I really do prefer fountain pen on nice paper, but there are times where you just need software.

There's a Lamy Safari sitting next to me, on top of a Rhodia Webnotebook. If there's a gun to my head and I have to handwrite something, it's far and away my favorite tool. It's the least painful of everything I've tried.

Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#28

Post by kstrauser »

kstrauser wrote: post #22

That's great. Alternatively, after a few decades of wishing otherwise, I've accepted that for me the decision is between take notes via typing and don't take notes . I fully get the value of handwriting things. I wish it weren't physically painful for me to write more than a paragraph, but it is, and has been since I was a kid. (And I've tried literally everything I could find to "fix" that. It's not from lack of try…

Followup: I realize I'm replying more to other comments in this HN thread about handwriting notes being superior to typing them, which isn't at all what the article's about.

The article said handwriting is better for learning a language, and that seems to intuitively make sense. It didn't talk about note taking in general.

Re: Handwriting is better than typing when learning a new language, study finds

#30

Post by zihotki »

I wonder if the same experience can be applied to other languages. That's because in the experiment the subjects were learning another language with completely different alphabet from English. The study was done, I assume, in US since the university is located there. It for sure will apply when learning Mandarin or Katakana. But will it apply when learning a language from same language family like Dutch?

From my personal experience if the alphabet is known for you then there is no need to write by hand. Typing could be even more efficient if you're typing fast. That makes it easy to quickly go through a lot of excercises for writing. And fast reading and reading a lot are another important factors to the success.

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