Stroke order (Part 1)

If you want to study shū fǎ 书法 (shoo-fah) (calligraphy) with a traditional Chinese máo bǐ 毛笔 (maow-bee) (writing brush), or even just learn how to write Chinese characters with a plain old ballpoint pen, you need to know which stroke goes before the next. This progression is known as bǐ shùn 笔顺 (bee shwun) (stroke order). Without further ado, here they are: »»Rule 1: Top to bottom. That’s it. (Just kidding.) The first rule of thumb is that you write the character by starting with the stroke that’s the highest one in the whole character. For example, the number one is written with a single horizontal line: 一. Since this character is pretty easy and has only one stroke, it’s written from left to right, without any concern about which stroke appears on top. It’s completely self-sufficient and stands alone. The character for two, however, is composed of two strokes: 二. Like the number one, these strokes are also written from left to right, but the top stroke is written first, following the top-to-bottom rule. The character for three has three strokes (三) and follows the same stroke-making pattern. For more complicated characters, such as léi 雷 (lay) (thunder), you must write the radical that appears on top (雨) first before writing the rest of the character underneath it. »»Rule 2: Write horizontal strokes before vertical strokes. For example, the character meaning ten (十) is composed of two strokes, but the first one you write is the one appearing horizontally: 一. The vertical stroke downward is written after that. »»Rule 3: Write strokes that have to pass through the rest of the character last. Vertical strokes that pass through many other strokes are written after the strokes they pass through (like in the second character for the city of Tiānjīn: 天津 [tyan-jeen]), and horizontal strokes that pass through all sorts of other strokes are written last (like in the character meaning boat: 舟 zhōu [joe]).