Writing
Chinese Stroke Order
Complete Practice Guide
Stroke order is not just a calligraphy convention — it makes writing faster, more legible, and easier to learn. This section covers animated examples, the rules behind the order, and the stroke types that every Chinese character is built from.
Animated Stroke Order Examples
Watch the correct stroke sequence for common characters using interactive Hanzi Writer animations.
Part 1 — Basic Characters
Numbers, basic radicals, and simple everyday characters. The best starting point for beginners.
Part 2 — Numbers & Radicals
Core radicals used in hundreds of characters, plus the numbers 1–10.
Part 3 — Body, Actions & Everyday Life
12 practical characters for talking about people, actions, and daily situations.
Part 4 — Advanced Characters
More complex characters with higher stroke counts — for intermediate learners.
Stroke Order Rules
The six rules that govern which stroke is written first — memorise once, apply to every character.
Part 1 — The 6 Core Rules
Top-to-bottom, left-to-right, horizontal before vertical, and the other fundamental rules with examples.
Part 2 — Compound Characters
How to apply the rules to left-right compounds, top-bottom compounds, and enclosed characters.
Part 3 — Advanced & Common Mistakes
Tricky characters, the penetrating-vertical rule, and a summary table of all 6 rules.
Stroke Types
The building blocks of every Chinese character — the 8 basic strokes and how they combine.
Part 1 — The 8 Basic Strokes (永字八法)
Horizontal, vertical, left-falling, right-falling, dot, turning, hook, and rising — plus the famous 永字八法 framework.
Part 2 — Compound Strokes
横折, 竖折, 横折钩, 竖弯钩, 卧钩, and more — compound strokes written in one continuous motion.
Part 3 — Stroke Count & Dictionary Lookup
How to count strokes correctly and use stroke count to look up characters in a Chinese dictionary.
Watch: Writing 100 Chinese Characters
A practical overview of stroke order in action — watch the characters being written before working through the interactive examples below.
Why Does Stroke Order Matter?
Speed
The rules were developed to make handwriting as efficient as possible — following them means your hand takes the shortest natural path through each character.
Consistency
When everyone follows the same rules, handwritten Chinese is more legible across different people's handwriting styles.
Memory
Writing a character with the correct stroke order reinforces the muscle memory that helps you recall how to write it again.
Dictionary lookup
Stroke count — which depends on correctly identifying each stroke — is how characters are indexed in traditional Chinese dictionaries.