Chinese stroke order: the rules, and what each one looks like
Every character is written in a fixed order. These are the eight rules that decide it, each drawn stroke by stroke with a character from HSK 3.0.
What is stroke order, and why is it fixed?
A Chinese character is a sequence of strokes, and the sequence is part of the character. Writing 我 with its seven strokes in the standard order and writing the same seven in another order produce the same shape on paper and two different pieces of knowledge.
The order does four things. Handwriting stays legible at speed, because the hand always leaves the same stroke in the same place. Dictionaries and phone keyboards find a character by its strokes, so a character you cannot pronounce is still findable. Handwriting recognition on a phone reads the order, not only the shape. And the hand remembers a sequence more reliably than the eye remembers a picture, which is why a character practised in order comes back and one copied as a drawing does not.
The eight rules
They apply in the order given: when two rules could both decide the next stroke, the earlier one wins.
1. Top to bottom — 三
The plainest rule, and the one that decides most of a character's shape. Three horizontal strokes, written from the top down.
2. Left to right — 好
A character built of two parts is written one part at a time, left part first: 女 complete, then 子.
3. Horizontal before vertical — 十
Where a horizontal and a vertical cross, the horizontal is written first.
4. Left-falling before right-falling — 人
Of the two diagonals, the one falling to the left (丿) comes first.
5. Outside before inside — 月
The frame is written before what sits inside it.
6. Inside before the box is closed — 回
The frame's bottom stroke is the last thing written, so the inside is finished while the box is still open.
7. Centre before the two sides — 小
In a symmetric character the middle stroke comes first, then the left, then the right.
8. A full-height vertical goes last — 中
A vertical that runs through the whole character is written after what it crosses.
Do characters ever break the rules?
Some do. The rules describe the standard order rather than generate it, and a few characters have a conventional order that one rule or another would predict differently — 火 and 方 are the ones learners meet first. When the rules and the standard disagree, the standard wins, which is why every character in this catalogue has its own page with its own diagram: all 1,780 of them.
How do you practise stroke order?
On a 米字格 — a square with a cross and two diagonals through it, which give the eye somewhere to put each stroke. Write the character while saying it aloud; check the order against the diagram; write it again without looking.
In 词语大冒险 · Word Adventure, the 汉字 tab does this on a screen: it draws the character stroke by stroke, then you write it and it says which stroke went wrong. Any of the 1,780 characters can be found by pinyin or by pasting the character, and handwriting practice is free for everyone, with no account.
Which characters should a beginner start with?
The ones that appear in the words being learned, in the order the lessons meet them. 494 characters carry the whole of HSK 2's 740 words: the HSK 2 characters.