Writing chinese characters

Writing chinese characters

The seven basic strokes

Chinese characters are written with the following seven basic strokes:

the dot , for instance:
the dash , for instance: ,
the down stroke or vertical stroke , for instance: ,
the left Falling Stroke , for instance:
the right falling Stroke for instance: ,
the hook , for instance: ,
the right Up stroke or rising stroke ,for instance:

Aesthetics and Proportions

When writing a character, the following rules should be respected :

each character should be written in the centre of an invisible square,
characters should be uniformly written with equal spacing between each,
each component of a character should be connected to the whole.

Stroke Order

Writing characters in the correct order is essential for the character to look correct. Nine basic rules are followed:

Rule 1: Top before bottom

Rule 2: Left before right

Rule 3: Outside to inside

Rule 4: Center stroke before wings

Rule 5: When two strokes cross, horizontal stroke before vertical stroke

Rule 6: Left vertical stroke before top horizontal stroke

Rule 7: Left-falling strokes before right-falling strokes

Rule 8: Bottom horizontal stroke last

Rule 9: dot strokes last

Component Order

Most Chinese characters are composed of two or more component characters. Like for the strokes, when writing a character composed of more than one component, the following three rules should be respected:

Rule 1: each component is written in its entirety before another component is written

Rule 2: Top component before bottom component

Rule 3: Left component before right component