Chinese Characters

Dating back from the Neolithic Age (about 6,000 BC to 2,000 BC) and Yangshao Culture, written Chinese is among the world's oldest written languages. They first began as "drawings". Now it has evolved into many different script forms, from oracle bones carvings, inscriptions on bronze, seal character, official script, regular script, cursive script to running script. Even today, as a living language recorder, it has not stopped evolving. Its present formats are mainly in square-shaped symbols, which we call Chinese characters. They are built from strokes in given construction steps. We count up to 100,000 Chinese characters in the present repertoire, impractical to learn them all. Hence, this article will focus on the principles of applying strokes and construction steps of Chinese characters, after learning of which, one will be able to practice writing Chinese characters with minimal hands-holding.

Stroke	Name	Example
	horizontal stroke	二三
	vertical stroke	十中
	down stroke to the left	八才
	down stroke to the right	人天
	dot	六玉
	upward stroke	虫河
	horizontal stroke with a vertical turn	白田
	horizontal stroke with a down stroke to the left	又冬
	horizontal stroke with a hook	皮
	vertical stroke with a horizontal turn to the right	出区
	vertical stroke combined with a level bending stroke	四
	vertical stroke with a upward stroke	比衣
	vertical stroke with a hook	手水
	down stroke to the left combined with a turn to the right	去公
	down stroke to the left combined with a dot	安姑
	bending stroke with a hook	家猪
	slant stroke with a hook	我成
	level bending stroke with a hook	心
	horizontal stroke with a vertical turn and a level bending stroke	船
	horizontal stroke with a vertical turn and a upward stroke	识
	horizontal stroke with a vertical turn and a hook	万
	vertical stroke with a level turn and a down stroke to the left	专传
	vertical stroke combined with a level bending stroke and a hook	花儿
	horizontal stroke with a double turn and a down stroke to the left	过
	horizontal stroke with a down stroke to the left and a bending stroke with a hook	都队
	horizontal stroke with a vertical turn and a bending stroke with a hook	气九
	vertical stroke with a double turn and a hook	乌写
	horizontal stroke with a triple turn and a hook	扔场

As mentioned, Chinese strokes are applied in given orders while shaping the characters. Basically, the stroke orders in writing Chinese characters are from left to right, from top to bottom, from outside in and from center out. The first stroke is the anchor and the subsequent strokes emulate from the first.