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Writing is primarily a motor skill, not a visual one. You don't need to visualize a keyboard to be able to touch-type, either. Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory very much distinct from any visualization ability.



Honest question: do you have any experience with Sino-Japanese writing? (I practice ShoDo, while not really have any Japanese language proficiency - I suspect that there is a big difference between writing in a phonetic alphabet and in anything like Chinese or Japanese).


The main difference between using an alphabet and a non-phonetic writing system is that with the latter, knowing the pronunciation does not really help you remember how to write a word. Since hanzi also tend to have more strokes than alphabetic handwriting, the sequences of hand movements you have to produce in one go are quite long. The way to cope is essentially lots of handwriting practice to really burn in each character.


I agree. I think the germinal point here is that visualization is a form of 'recall' and that shouldn't be necessary if muscle memory suffices.




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