Stroke Order

When we write a Chinese character, there is a prescribed order according to which we write the strokes. There are two reasons for this:
1) The stroke order grew out of the art of calligraphy. In order to make the characters beautiful and uniform, it makes sense to write them in the same way each time. Stroke order ensures we do so.
2) Since characters are made of elements that occur over and over again throughout all of the characters, it is much easer to remember how to write them if we write them in the same way each time.
Watch the video, then read through the rules and look at the examples. Print this strokeorder.pdf to follow along with the video.

What is the basic shape of every Chinese character?...................... Square.

The two main rules of stroke order are: Top to bottom; Left to right, i.e. we start at the top left of the square and work our way right and down and finish at the lower right. This is the goal, but it doesn't absolutely always work out that way.

Note the rules, then look at the examples of each rule that follow. Then watch the video below.

1. Top to bottom

2. Left to right

3. Horizontal stroke before crossing vertical stroke

4. Bottom horizontal stroke last (to finish at the lower right)

5. Center stroke before sides

6. Left falling stroke (beginning a the upper right and falling left) before right falling stroke (to finish at the lower right)

7. Outside before inside (but see 8)

8. Stuff inside the box before sealing the box

9. In some types, inside before outside

10. Minor strokes last (but not when it is on top or left, and so comes first)

Putting it all together. Try to see whether you understand why these characters are written in this manner.

Note that there are two ways that stroke order is shown in textbooks. One shows the numbered strokes; the other shows each stroke.



Look here to check the stroke order for lots of characters, arranged by pinyin.

https://www.csulb.edu/%7Etxie/azi/page1.htm
https://zhongwen.com/shufa/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order