What does 提筆忘字 (제필망자) literally mean?

ANSWER: "Lift (提) a pen (筆) [and] forget (忘) the character (字)." In other words, "Chinese amnesia."

Writing Chinese characters reminds me of the old saying, "If you don't use it, you lose it." In other words, if you do not write Chinese characters regularly, you will forget how to do it, and this applies even to the Chinese, who, by the way, created the Chinese saying.

Reading Chinese characters and typing them using a computer keyboard are different from writing them by hand. Writing them by hand is harder.