>>12651558I can't really write most characters. There's many I can sort of recall the shape for, but might omit a few important strokes if I tried writing them down.
I don't think I could really hold a conversation in Japanese. Sometimes I have a few words or sentences in Japanese come to my mind, but it's almost always in the context of something meant to be said in English (or Spanish).
Occasionally I write some stuff for myself in my notebook in Japanese, but that's about as far as it gets.
From what I've read Japanese people online say, they usually remember how to write characters by forcing themselves to write stuff, say to people at work, at home, make notes for themselves, etc. using pen and paper rather than using a computer/cell phone keyboard. It kind of is a motor memory skill, but it's also got to do with having them very deeply ingrained in one's memory (which is also the reason why native speakers can decipher fast/unclear speech that learners might mentally filter as unintelligible babble).
Calligraphy is more the art of learning to write beautifully. Japanese/Chinese people only use calligraphy for decorative purposes, and most of what they write by hand looks more like printed fonts than it does look like Chinese calligraphy
