I have only written a little in my target language, mostly to complete an activity or write a short paragraph. I most definitely prefer to write free hand type due to spell check and the accents. When I have to type Slovak words on the computer, it is always a pain to find the correct accent marks because many of them are not readily available on Word or with a certain keystroke pattern. Additionally, almost every Slovak word that I type into the computer gets flagged as incorrect or autocorrects to an English word. For me, typing on the computer turns studying Slovak into a tedious task and takes away from my learning experience; I just feel frustrated and fail to retain any information or make any new connections.
Honestly, I have not written very much in Slovak and mostly spoken in Slovak which fits my language goals better than a writing-focused learning experience. However, my few experiences with writing in Slovak usually produce very simple sentences as I am still learning grammatical concepts such as tenses and declension. It’s a really strange experience to have a complex sentence made up in your head, but you cannot actually express it. Declension and the different cases are an especially difficult set of concepts for me; my lack of knowledge in declension completely limits my ability to properly express the correct form of a noun or ending of an adjective.
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Whilst I can't relate to the accents, I can definitely relate to the keystroke issue! I actually don't have the problem of autocorrect not knowing what I am typing, rather it corrects my spelling because my spelling is horrible. But I can see how frustrating that can be, when your learning is disturbed instead of enhanced from technology. I also feel frustrated when I have to type, but end up having to glance down at my keyboard to see if I'm hitting the right keys. But my language goals are rather opposite of yours, and it's interesting to hear about declension. It's my first time hearing about it and would love to hear more about what it actually is!
This post is so interesting! I actually prefer to type in Korean then write, but in the beginning I preferred to write because I was not used to the Korean keyboard. I also definitely understand the frustration that comes with typing accents because I used to hate typing in Spanish because of all the accents and it was easier to write in Spanish then type on the keyboard.
I can also relate to the difficulty of typing in a language other than English. In Korean, the characters have specific keys that correlate on the English letter keyboards and memorizing this seems impossible. I find that using the handwriting feature in Google Translate is pretty effective in practicing handwriting but also getting the words to the screen. Something like this might be available for Slovak!
I definitely relate with the typing on the keyboard issue! I don't have a Korean keyboard on my computer, but I found it very helpful to use an online Korean keyboard, especially when I'm trying to write blog posts and want to show how the Korean word is spelled. I also haven't written much in Korean and am still grappling with the grammar concepts, which I'm started to realize is so weird and more challenging to contextualize as a second language learner!