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Chinese
Writing Symbols - Basic Strokes
For Chinese
writing symbols is actually much easier than they appear, If
you have some knowledge of the basic strokes and their sequences in
writing, you will find it is fun to follow and write rather than
intimidating.
Chinese
characters and writing chinese symbols are made out of simple single strokes, the basic strokes are
classified into eight forms, the other strokes are variations of the
basic ones. All strokes have names and are written according to rules.
All
characters builds up from basic strokes. The simplest ones have only
one stroke while the more complex ones can have more than 20-30 strokes.
It's
very important to recognize the strokes and follow the writing rules.
Learning the fundamental strokes of Chinese writing and the correct
order also helps memorize characters and is an essential basis to learn
written Chinese.
The
number of strokes in Chinese writing symbols and characters are also used as a way to categorize
characters in Chinese dictionaries.
You
can find the most common basic strokes, their writing rules and
examples in the table below.
|
Stroke
|
Writing Rule
|
Name in Pinyin
|
Example
|
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A simple dot
|
diǎn
|
主
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|
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Horizontal stroke, left to right
|
héng
|
王
|
|
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Vertical stroke, top to bottom
|
shù
|
十
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|
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Diagonal stroke, falling from right to left
|
piě
|
人
|
|
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Horizontal stroke, falling from left to right
|
nà
|
友
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|
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Diagonal
stroke, rising from left to right
|
tí
|
地
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|
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Horizontal
stroke with a hook
|
héng gōu
|
买
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|
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Vertical stroke with a hook
|
shù gōu
|
小
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|
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Slant stroke with a hook
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xié gōu
|
我
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Horizontal stroke with a vertical turn
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héng zhé
|
国
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Vertical stroke with a horizontal turn to
the right
|
shù zhé
|
它
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Quite
often, a stroke can be altered to make the character look and feel "better". When you write, keep in mind that strokes don't only need to
be correct, they should also be adjusted to make the character well
balanced and fit together.
For
example, look at this character "王", it is three "héng" and
they are all in different sizes, because it looks beautiful this way
than all three "héng" have the same sizes; and the vertical
line " shù " is placed in
the middle to make the character balance.
Now, you've
understood the basic Chinese writing strokes, let's move on to the next
part - Proper Way
to Write Chinese Characters
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