How to handwrite roman letters?

Netherlands: in first grade, we were instructed to write loose individual letters. Only after a year of so did we learn to connect the letters, and from then on that's what we were supposed to do throughout elementary school.

I remember that a lot of people abandoned longhand when transitioning from elementary school to high school (at age 12). At high school one had to take more notes and many people said that they could write faster when using loose letters. (Not me, and I don't know if it's even true.)

All letters linked is known as cursive writing - or joined writing. In Dublin you hear children referring to it as "thatch". One 6 year old at my school calls it "curly writing" and is longing to get started at it. The style where the letters are unattached is known as script or print (not to be confued with Capital letters print.) In Ireland there is no rule about which style of writing is taught. Some schools make internal policy decisions, sometimes it is left up to individual teachers.
I have noticed that our new pupils from Eastern European countries all seem to do a similar style of cursive writing.

All letters linked is known as cursive writing - or joined writing

Or script.

The script that we learn in the US seems to be different from the type learned in Europe. I have trouble reading European handwriting sometimes. Even if they print the letters (=not write them in script) it's still hard for me to read sometimes. We also learn to write numbers differently.

Interesting. I may be wrong, but as far as I know, everybody uses cursive writing in France.

Actually, my cursive writing has became difficult to decipher. I'm trying to switch to print writing.

In engineering classes in college in the USA we were required to use printing, not cursive, on any written assignments. It was easier for the graders to read.

I think it's generally quite easy to distinguish German, French and British handwriting from each other (regardless of the language being used), and to me there seems to be less variation in French handwriting - but that might just be because I've been exposed to less French handwriting than English.

I think it's generally quite easy to distinguish German, French and British handwriting from each other (regardless of the language being used)

No, not for me. It all looks the same and equally difficult to read, to me.

I've read a number of articles the past few years on variants of "the decline an fall of cursive writing." A lot of American schools are not longer teaching it or teach it only briefly in second or third grade. A lot of kids only learn how to do some sort of printing, like the examples shown.

The Handwriting Is on the Wall
>When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

[snip]
>Many educators shrug. Stacked up against teaching technology, foreign languages and the material on standardized tests, penmanship instruction seems a relic, teachers across the region say

The article in #7 seems to say that printing is a bad thing and equates cursive with good handwriting. I always found printed writing clearer to read than cursive, and I now only write in print except my signature.

As for different countries, every single Mexican person's handwriting that I've seen might as well be from the same person to me, I don't know how they do it. In Chile they learn to write the capital I like what looks like a Y to me, but with the top v shape curved at the bottom, the stem coming off the right-hand side, and a tail at the bottom curving to the left.