Stroke order (Part 2)

»»Rule 4: Create diagonal strokes that go from right to left before writing the diagonal strokes that go from left to right. You write the character meaning culture — 文 wén — with four separate strokes: First comes the dot on top, then the horizontal line underneath it, then the diagonal stroke that goes from right to left, and finally the diagonal stroke that goes from left to right. »»Rule 5: In characters that are vertically symmetrical, create the center components before those on the left or the right. Then write the portion of the character appearing on the left before the one appearing on the right. An example of such a character is the one meaning to take charge of: 承 chéng. »»Rule 6: Write the portion of the character that’s an outside enclosure before the inside portion. For example, the word for sun: 日 rì. Some characters with such enclosures don’t have bottom portions, such as with the character for moon: 月 yuè. »»Rule 7: Make the left vertical stroke of an enclosure first. For example, in the word meaning mouth — 口 kǒu (ko) — you write the vertical stroke on the left first, followed by the horizontal line on top and the vertical stroke on the right (those two are written as one stroke) and finally the horizontal line on the bottom. »»Rule 8: Bottom enclosing components usually come last. For example, the character meaning the way: 道 dào. »»Rule 9: Dots come last. For example, in the character meaning jade — 玉 yù — the little dot you see between the bottom and middle horizontal lines is written last.

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]).