![]() ![]() 钩 (gōu) means “hook.” This is mostly used in compound strokes and rarely by itself. 撇 (piě) is referred to as a “left falling stroke.” 撇 literally means “fling.” Start at the top middle and “fling” your stroke down to the bottom left. Start at the top middle of the square and draw a straight line down to the bottom middle. (By the way: You just wrote your first Chinese word! The single straight horizontal line is the character for the number one.) Start at the left middle of the square and draw a straight line across to the right middle. Here’s a video from eChineseLearning that demonstrates this stroke: If you’re just starting out, I recommend using actual squares!Īs you learn the strokes, write each one five times and say the name of the stroke out loud each time you write it.įirst, we have 点 (diǎn), which means “dot.” The stroke starts at the middle of the square and goes down diagonally to the right. When you practice strokes or characters, you should also draw within an imaginary square. When children learn to write, they use writing paper with rows of squares so they can learn to fit the characters within them, regardless of how complicated a character may be. Here, you’ll get eight, plus a couple of compound strokes (which aren’t as hard as they might sound).Įach Chinese character is drawn within an imaginary square. There are many ways to count Chinese strokes. There are more people who use simplified characters than traditional, and they’re easier to learn. If those questions didn’t help you choose, go with simplified. Mainland China and the Mandarin-speaking communities of Singapore and Malaysia use simplified characters or 简体字 (jiǎn tǐ zi). Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau use traditional characters or 繁体字 (fán tǐ zi). These questions help because the two character sets are regionally used. Where are the Chinese speakers you’ll be communicating with from?.When you use Mandarin, where will you live or travel to?.Both character sets have value, so this can be a tough call. The first thing to decide is whether you want to learn simplified or traditional Mandarin. Choose Simplified or Traditional Characters This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that youĬlick here to get a copy. Memorize Chinese Characters with Mnemonic Aids Just follow our seven tips to help you master Chinese character writing, and you’ll be in great shape! Remembering stroke order will ensure your characters are legible so that people will understand what you’re trying to express. Perhaps you want to write Chinese characters yourself.įor your Chinese writing to be successful, it’s essential to follow the correct stroke order. If you want to try something a little different, why not check out Skritter, the handwriting platform?! You can practice both traditional and simplified Chinese, as well as Japanese Kanji.Chinese characters are beautiful and mysterious to many people. ![]() These will keep your characters balanced, legible and will keep them uniform (It’s really easy to extend a stroke here and there and write a completely different character!). To perfect your Chinese Character stroke order, the best way is to practice! Although you can use plain or lined paper, it’s better to use the proper Chinese writing books that have four squares. Test your new knowledge and then check the answers by clicking each character!Įach Chinese stroke also has a name, that you can learn in our articles that will teach you the names of 20 Chinese character strokes. The following characters are often written incorrectly. Test Your Chinese Stroke Order Rules Knowledge As frustrating as this was for me, I do understand why and also have to admit that I, a grown woman over 20 years older than my students was also a culprit of writing (albeit Chinese characters) however I wanted. In my past life as an English teacher, I taught lots of children to read and write English, and the first thing they want to do is break the rules and draw a ball and a stick to make the letter ‘d’. Kind of a nice catch 22 there isn’t it?Īs with all ‘alphabets’ there are rules to produce the shape of a letter or character. However, ACTUALLY learning the stroke order for Characters often helps the learner to remember the character, which is why Chinese character stroke order is taught in Chinese Schools from a young age. Remembering the stroke order for each and every Chinese character is, according to many of you, the most difficult thing about learning Chinese. Even when you know your radicals inside out, have made a nice story (or mnemonic) woman 女 (nǚ) under a roof 宀 (mián) = peace 安 (ān), putting pen to paper can still be a bit of a daunting prospect. I think it’s fair to say that just trying to recognise Chinese characters is hard enough.
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