Why is stroke order important when writing Chinese characters?

Question

I often see people having a big focus on correct stroke order for writing Chinese characters.

My question is, for most learners, is it important to know the stroke order, and if so, why is it important? Where does the rigid adherence to stroke order stem from?

Answer 1

I could think of some reasons why the stroke order is important.

1. In modern times, especially in the digital times, there should be a standard of the stroke order, so that when people input characters with "stroke order" method, it's useful to program the input method consistently.

2. We have some general rules of the stroke order, such as "from up to down, from left to right". I think this is reasonable, because you will feel comfortable when writing that way.

3. Remember, you are not a machine or computer, you can't precisely control the positions of each stroke, so you can't write the strokes here and there to get a beautiful character.

Also, I want to say that there are really official standards of stroke orders. In mainland, it's 《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》,and in Taiwan, it's 《常用国字标准字体笔顺》.However, I know 《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》is a recommended, not a mandatory standard.

When I was a student, my teacher taught me the correct order for some characeters, but not all characters. I just reviewed the standard, and found I had some mistakes in the order against the standard.E.g. the standard says that “heart" radical(left part of 情) is written: /，、，|， but my order is:|, /, 、.
I think minor "mistakes" are acceptable, because the stroke order is not something like math, you can't set up a definite system to specify everything. I think that's why the standard is not mandatory.

Answer 2

The stroke order is important, yes. The main reason that explains why the stroke order is so important is that the it helps to write the character correctly, with better speed and in an easier way.

Pick a character, and try to write it with the official stroke order, and then with another one: you'll find out that in the second case it will be sometimes harder to write it and mostly it will come out with a different shape, i.e. incorrect shape, and also ugly sometimes. This is because when using the official stroke order, the character will appear with more harmonious proportions and therefore, more beautiful.

Also, I'm not sure the following are "official reasons", but I suppose that:

• it helps to memorize the character and retain it too, because your muscles "remember" the movements and so does your brain;
• when reading someone else's handwriting, the shape changes a lot and the movement of the pen/brush can help you to read since you know the stroke order.

Answer 3

The single most important reason for stroke order being adhered to is probably the handwriting problem:

Imagine, if you will, someone writing an english text in cursive, consistently crossing the t's and dotting the i's before writing the stems; and making it part of the flow of the line.

Now imagine that same scenario, only with each character having dozens, if not hundreds of potential cursive shapes…

Essentially, the stroke order allows writers to make simplifications when writing the character; and readers to understand same. (Squiggly line at the left? 水 radical, etc.)

Secondary to this is the use of stroke order in memorization techniques, etc.

Answer 4

My teacher says there are two main reasons for stroke order:

• Depending on the stroke order, the character will look one way or another. This is mainly a matter of style from times when writing was made exclusively with paint brushes. Now in the era of computers, stroke order is definitely not important for writing.
• As it's been said, for systems that rely on stroke order to lookup and input characters on a computer, a standardized order is mandatory.

Remember that Roman letters have also a standard (maybe more than one standard) stroke order and direction, which is taught at school, although I don't think most people is aware of this when writing (I know I'm not).

Answer 5

The order of strokes affects the "evolution" of the character when writing in high speed. In high speed the character shape shifts and one can often recognize the character even after extreme deformation because the general flow of the character is there. But if the stroke orders are changed, the deformation doesn't conform to the expected shape and it may be unrecognizable to other people.

For example, imagine the "s" in the word "best". If written in high speed the end of the "e" touches the top of the "s" and the "s" deforms to look like a "backwards C". Imagine if people wrote "s" with the "e" touching the bottom of the "s". i.e., the "s" is written from bottom-up. Now under high speed, the "s" actually looks like a well formed "s" but the "e" and "t" are deformed, make the word "best" look weird.

High speed writers can make characters look almost nothing like it's proper counterpart, but people have learned to recognize them and recognize other people's handwriting because the stroke order affects the form.

Also, following stroke order helps computers recognize characters better. Under high speed, a character will look totally different from it's proper form, but a trained computer can recognize the direction and order of the strokes and can recognize the character based off of that alone, rather than trying to recognizing the end image. I would imagine that that results in fewer false positives than recognizing by image alone.

Answer 6

Stroke order is important, but the rigid insistence on a single correct stroke order appears to be a product of modern universal education. The Japanese and Chinese have actually standardised different stroke orders for some characters (e.g., 必).

Answer 7

Stroke order is important to get the right proportions. First, it's like a picture. A good photographer would know the law of thirds. Similar concept in Chinese characters. The previous stroke helps to align the next stroke on the page.

Take 酉 for instance. I was always taught that you start from top left, first down then right. Start with the 一。But then there is the mouth 口。you open the mouth 冂，fill it, 一, then close it 一 at the bottom. So do you write 儿，before opening the mouth? If you did, you would have to make sure the mouth was big enough to fill everything. Otherwise you would have no guideline for where to stop the stroke, and the proportions for the size of what to fill the mouth with. The correct stroke order: 一，冂，儿，一，一。

The worst character to write nicely I find is: 美, and anything with 隹 in it, like: 謢.

With this stroke order is important. It is only important in computerized typing to know the right combination of key presses to output the right character on screen.

Answer 8

Very important as It's a part of the learning process, learning Chinese characters without the strokes order makes things more difficult. I believe nowadays schools in China still teach stroke orders, but many people write purely on computers now using PinYin, making it less important. For people typing with WuBi the stroke order is crucial. If you want to know more about Chinese writing.

Answer 9

Besides easier-to-guess-your-intended-character hand-writing knowing how to write characters "correctly" gives a Mandarin learner:

1. Better character lookup ability in dictionaries when using the "hand-write" character lookup in Pleco and other modern electronic dictionaries. Especially useful when the scan lookup isn't working (because of a weird font or hand-written character). The order you hand-write strokes on your smartphone will affect which characters the dictionary thinks you are writing.
2. If you know the right number of strokes added to the radical then better character lookup in paper dictionaries that organize characters by radical and number of strokes (also can be used to look-up characters with some electronic dictionaries like MDBG).
3. Better ability to guess the correct character meant when reading (somewhat sloppy) hand-written Chinese.
4. Ability to use Character input methods that depend on knowing how to write the character "properly".

Answer 10

There are six basic strokes of Chinese characters, horizontal stroke, vertical stroke, left-falling stroke, right-falling stroke, dot and rising stroke. Other types of strokes are derived from the strokes mentioned above, and thus known as the derived strokes.

One should be aware that in writing Chinese characters each stroke must go in a certain direction. It is important to understand this point and get oneself familiar with strokes. There are about 20-30 types of strokes that Chinese characters are composed of. The following is but a brief list:

chinese character stroke

The great majority of Chinese characters are formed by more than two strokes. The stroke can only be written in certain directions. For example, the horizontal stroke should only go from left to right. the vertical stroke can only be written from top to bottom, never from bottom to top. check here and learn the chinese stroke order http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-characters-learning-tips/chinese-character-stroke-order/

Answer 11

I'm a chinese. For my point that stroke order is necessary but not very important.It's a way to write them just like we write English. And the last question, I think less people could know

Answer 12

I am a half Chinese.I love my Chinese grandma. This is the reason why it made me so eager to learn her language. And it all started when she held my hand and taught me the right strokes and suddenly I came to remember on how to write it properly and nicely. I believe it is very important to learn the strokes, It creates a clear direction on how to write it in an easy manner. at first, I thought it was difficult. As time goes by, It made me to yearn for more. Practice makes perfect. When you learn the strokes by heart. I also have taught kids "The Chinese Language" Read and write, As a Tutor. I felt good after seeing them writing just like my handwriting. For My grandma left a legacy for me, And I want to continue it. So I also pass that legacy to my students. It created an impact on the lives of other people.