I found a book and I’d like to try to learn. I think I can learn the information fine, but I’m worried about the actual writing part.
My handwriting is legible, but somewhat messy/irregular. My letters don’t look exactly the same every time. And when I’ve tried writing the shorthand outlines, it is difficult for me to make the fine distinctions in line length, curvature, and orientation.
Does this happen to everyone, and should I expect it to go away with practice? Or should I opt not to waste my time learning shorthand if I’ll probably never be proficient?
As long as you can understand them, that’s all that counts.
Practice, practice practice. Only way to build up speed. Listen to the news and try taking shorthand. Sometimes I listen to people talking and can almost visualize taking shorthand in my head. Keep notebooks around and go back after some time and see if you can read them. You have to memorize it and know it so well you don’t even think about it.
I learned it in high school. Its like handwriting, you get to learn the subtle differences between your own handwriting - someone else may not be able to read your Gregg, but you will.
However, I’ve never needed it - by the time I was out tape recorders and transcription machines were far easier and led to far fewer mistakes. And, by now, I think most people just type.
What are you intending on using it for. IME, its handy if you are going to immediately transcribe, but its usually not easy to go back weeks later and read what you wrote. So, if you were going to use it for college notes, you’d want to transcribe.
Yes, at first my outlines were rather illegible. I had trouble getting the curves and the proportions right. But I kept practicing over and over - it was monotonous, just like practicing typing or the piano, but eventually the writing starts to look good and your speed will increase.
ISTR that we were given simple dictation sheets that we could take home and have someone read to us. The teacher also gave frequent dictation. In addition, I would try to write down stuff as I listened to the television and the radio. That last one was a real hoot - a lot of hard-to-write words were used, and it was way too fast. It’s all good, though, in improving your legibility and speed.
Good luck to your efforts. I’ve never regretted learning Gregg shorthand. I use it constantly and am one of the few secretaries I know that does, and it gives me a job advantage.
That’s pretty amazing. The exact same thing happened to me!
When I was walking home from school as a child, I found a book in the ditch. It turned out to be a book on Gregg shortand. (Simplified, which was the standard of the day.) It’s easy to learn and I’ve used it quite a lot. I do better at reading than writing, though. Enjoy.
I taught myself to type from a book, and it wasn’t that tough, mostly a lot of repitition (asdf 'lkj asdf 'lkj . . .). So I decided to teach myself Gregg shorthand from a book. Same principle, right?
I gave up after a couple of weeks. I know it takes much longer than that, but I was making absolutely no headway on speed at all. I guess I just had a block. My hat’s off to everyone who’s learned it.
