Strokes and the rules
Every Chinese character, however complicated, is made of a handful of basic strokes, written in a set order. Today is the first strokes and the first four characters, which are numbers you already know from the daily course.
The first characters
Four characters, two strokes.
Numbers are the easiest characters there are, and they teach the first rule for free: horizontal strokes go left to right, and the top stroke comes first. Write each one with the stroke-order animation on its character page.
The basic strokes
Their names, which teachers use.
You do not need these names to write well, but every Chinese teacher and stroke-order chart uses them. 横 and 竖 are worth knowing because the first rule of stroke order is about them.
Easy to confuse
Shapes that differ by one stroke.
Many beginner mistakes are one stroke out. Counting strokes is the habit that catches them, and it is how dictionaries are organised too.
Stroke order is not only tradition. Writing strokes in the standard order makes characters look right, makes them faster to write, and makes handwriting readable by others, including handwriting input on a phone, which recognises characters partly by the order you draw them.
8 questions. Get 5 right to finish the day.
十 means…
- horizontal stroke
- Ten, or seven
- ten
- one
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ten A horizontal, then a vertical through it.
竖 means…
- dot
- two
- one
- vertical stroke
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vertical stroke Top to bottom, as in 十.
二 means…
- three
- two
- ten
- Ten, or seven
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two Two horizontals, the top one shorter.
点 means…
- three
- ten
- one
- dot
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dot A short stroke, often at the top.
Type the pinyin for 撇.
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piě Down and to the left, as in 人.
Which one means "one"?
- 十 shí
- 竖 shù
- 三 sān
- 一 yī
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一 One horizontal stroke, written left to right.
Which one means "three"?
- 三 sān
- 点 diǎn
- 十 shí
- 一 yī
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三 Three horizontals, the middle one shortest.
Type the Chinese or pinyin for "horizontal stroke".
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héng Left to right, as in 一.
Question 1 of 8