Greetings Fellow Shorthand Enthusiasts!
I learned Gregg Shorthand in the 1980s in high school and am now working to both recover and advance that knowledge and skill. So far it’s a lot of fun and I am so grateful for this community and the resources it represents.
Some questions that have surfaced during my self-guided study are:
- What is the most efficient follow-up to mistakes made during dictation? What’s common for me is that either I recall how to write a word in shorthand, or I draw a complete blank. (Rarely do I write a word incorrectly.) This happens even if I have no trouble recognizing the word in reading practice.
- Where does penmanship fit into a beginner’s curriculum? Should I be regularly devoting time to it from the start? I don’t want to over complicate the learning process in this early stage, but at the same time, I am wary of establishing poor hand-eye coordination and muscle memory which then has to be fixed later on.
- What about speed-building? Right now I’m focused simply on getting reacquainted with the process of writing what I hear and I’m not worried about speed, but I know that at some point it should become a target. I’m wondering if that point occurs during the study of the basic book (I’m studying Simplified), or not until I’ve finished all 70 lessons.
- Last but not least, it is an important goal for me to also learn Gregg shorthand for Spanish. I have the materials so that’s not an issue. But when would be the ideal time to start? At first I was alternating with the standard English lessons – English one day, Spanish the next. But it felt as if it was really dragging me down and my progress in both was super slow and discouraging so I put Spanish on the back burner and for the time being I’m 100% focused on shorthand in my native language. Of course, the temptation to jump into the Spanish materials doesn’t go away and I’m itching to resume working with it as soon as is feasible.
Thank you to all those who contribute to this site and make it the great resource it is.
Laura M.