1.6: Stroke Order

Now that you have learned about the basic strokes used when writing Chinese, let's go into a little more detail about how to combine strokes to form Chinese characters.  In order to write characters that look correct, you must write each stroke in the correct order and direction.  There are a number of principles that can be used as guides to stroke order.  Here are seven rules of thumb.

Rule of Thumb #1: Top-to-Bottom

When a Chinese character is “stacked” vertically, like the character 立 lì or “to stand,” the rule is to write from top to bottom.

Rule of Thumb #2: Left-to-Right

When a Chinese character has a radical, the character is written left to right. The same rule applies to characters that are stacked horizontally. Take a look at the 吃 chī example above, which means “to eat.”

Rule of Thumb #3: Symmetry Counts 

When you are writing a character that is centered and more or less symmetrical (but not stacked from top to bottom) the general rule is to write the center stroke first. Check out the character 小 xiǎo which means “small.”

Rule of Thumb #4: Horizontal First, Vertical Second 

Horizontal strokes are always written before vertical strokes. Check out how to write the character 十 shí or “ten.”

Rule of Thumb #5: Enclosures before Content 

You want to create the frame of the character before you fill it in. Check out how to write the character 日 rì or “sun.”

Rule fo Thumb #6: Close Frames Last 

Remember this step as, "You want to fill the closet before you close the door.” After you write the middle strokes, close the frame, such as in the character 回 huí or “to return.”

Rule of Thumb #7: Character-spanning Strokes Last 

For strokes that cut across many other strokes, they are often written last. For example, the character 半 bàn, which means “half.” The vertical line is written last.

However, there are always exceptions to everything. In order to truly master stroke order, you need to learn each radical and character individually and practice writing them.

Below is a table showing the stroke order for many radicals.  Radicals are the building blocks of characters, and we'll discuss them next.  Again, don't worry, you need not learn all of these right now!  For reference only.  You can also click on the image of each radical for a close-up view or on the number next to it for more detailed information.

1 stroke	1 2 3 4 5 6
2 strokes	7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
3 strokes	30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
4 strokes	61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94
5 strokes	95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117
6 strokes	118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146
7 strokes	147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166
8 strokes	167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175
9 strokes	176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186
10 strokes	187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194
11 strokes	195 196 197 198 199 200
12 strokes	201 202 203 204
13 strokes	205 206 207 208
14 strokes	209 210
15 strokes	211
16 strokes	212 213
17 strokes	214