The Chinese Characters stroke order 笔划顺序

Strokes are combined together according to a few fixed rules (and to several exceptions!). Learn these rules, because they’re of great help for memorizing characters. They are also fundamental in case you need to recognize the first stroke of a character, but we’ll talk about that again. This article teach you learn The Chinese Characters stroke order.

1 Strokes at the top before those at the bottom.

2 Strokes to the left before those to the right.

3 Containing strokes before contained ones.

But:

• When there aren’t enclosing strokes at the top of the character, enclosed strokes are written first:

4 Vertical stroke in the middle before those on both sides or at the bottom.

But:

• If it crosses other strokes the vertical stroke in the middle should be written last:

The fundamental rules – from top to bottom and from left to right – are easily understandable, since they are used in Western writings, too. The others on the contrary need a few exercise. Be sure to learn from the beginning the correct way each different character should be written; otherwise you may find yourself repeating the same mistakes over and over without realizing it, especially when you’ll know hundreds of characters.