[rabboRubble]

ok, but can he read handwritten chinese? if you come away from your memorization process only able to read chinese newspaper fonts, you will have missed the ability to read handwritten notes on a whiteboard, the artistic renderings on product packages, the ancient forms of characters in artistic objects.

[dickjocke]

isn't most text you'll see nowadays going to be printed and standardized? I can't remember the last time I read a handwritten anything, aside from my own notes.

[rabboRubble]

Yes, but do you not have a whiteboard in your workplace? anything an actual chinese person writes on that will be in a personalized cursive. Normal cityscapes will be filled with italicized, cursive, traditional, simplified, archaic forms. Merely learning to read newspaper and computer fonts is great for reading a newspaper or computer screen. Not so great for a fully functional life.

I lived in Asia for 15 years, speak, read, and write JP/Ch-Trad/Ch-Simp and I still struggle with handwriting and cursive. At this point, I've resigned my self to a lifelong hobby to improve.