Stroke order (敝 and 脊)
aeflow
July 25, 2007, 06:14 PM posted in General DiscussionI always thought stroke order was immutably cast in stone by ancient sages, but it turns out that as recently as 1997 the official stroke order of 敝 and 脊 was changed.
For 敝, it's the top two strokes, then 巾, then the bottom two strokes.
For 脊, the top four strokes are written first.
For some reason I found this fascinating and just had to pass it on.
It seems the official reference is 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范, published in 1997. It seems to be available online at http://www.china-language.gov.cn/gfbz/scanning/bsgf/bsgf.htm , but in a truly execrable barely legible scan from printed material, like it was run through some prehistoric fax machine.
By the way, for those of you who learned Japanese first, do you stick to Japanese stroke order when writing characters in Chinese, or did you switch to Chinese stroke order?
daizi
July 25, 2007, 08:58 PMOh, and it aids in looking up characters if they're listed by first and second stroke.
aeflow
July 25, 2007, 09:03 PMPerhaps it might also be useful for learning the Wubi input method (五笔字型). Has anyone tried that? Seems like a huge learning curve, is it worth it?
tvan
July 26, 2007, 02:35 AMaeflow, I gave Wubi and CangJie a stab earlier this year. However, I'm still very much in the Intermediate stage insofar as character memorization goes. Personally, I found I was wasting too much time on learning a new typing method (which is a lot faster) and not enough time on learning new characters; I gave up. I think they might be appropriate for an advanced student.
daizi
July 25, 2007, 08:56 PMThere are many ways to write characters. I doubt you'd be able to find any two Chinese people who agree on all but the simplest characters. The only reason to stick to a consistent model is that it helps your brain to chunk the parts of a character in a systemic way.