Stroke Direction
light487
October 21, 2008, 11:25 PM posted in General DiscussionHi..
I have now just started to write Hanzi on a daily basis. I am using the Hanzi Helper program made by a poddie, his name starts with "col" but I can't remember the other 3 letetrs in his username right now. Anyway, the point of this post is to ask a really basic question: How can I tell which direction the stroke shoulod be written.
I can use the Animated GIF website to show me the stroke order but I am wanting to be sure I am also making the strokes in the correct direction as well, as I am sure this will aid me later on. When I look at a character that is using a decently rendered font, I can see there is a thin end and a fat end of each stroke.
I am assuming that the fat end is the end of the stroke and the thin end is the start of the stroke, only because if I was using a brush, I would end up with a fat end at the end of a stroke; or if I was doing one of those tiny strokes, I would end up with a tapered stroke with the tip of the brush pointing towards the thin end of the stroke.
Just really wanted to confirm that I had this correct.
I'm trying to do 10 to 14 characters a day, writing them out 10 times each. Not using any context at this point because I am just really getting used to writing. Next month a new book will be released called "Remembering The Hanzi Book 1", so when I get that I will take more of a structured approach to Hanzi learning.
calkins
October 22, 2008, 12:15 AMHey Light,
I use Hanzi Helper also, it's a pretty great tool. You may not know this, but you can right-click on a character, within HH, and a window will pop up and show you the stroke order. The problem is that the direction isn't very clear.
The best way to learn the proper stroke direction is to learn the names of the basic strokes and their writing direction. I think this should be the first thing to learn, before learning to write hanzi.
Eight Basic Stroke Forms
1. "Dian" - A simple dot.
2. "Heng" - Horizontal stroke, left to right.
3. "Shu" - Vertical stroke, top to bottom.
4. "Gou" - Hook appended to other strokes.
5. "Ti" - Diagonal stroke, rising from left to right.
6. "Pie" - Diagonal stroke, falling from right to left.
7. "Duan Pie" - Short diagonal stroke, falling from right to left.
8. "Na" - Horizontal stroke, falling from left to right.
Stroke Order
Writing characters in the correct order is essential for the character to look correct. Two basic rules are followed:
1. Top before bottom
2. Left before right
These rules conflict whenever one stroke is to the bottom and left of another. Several additional rules resolve many of these conflicts.
3. Left vertical stroke (usually) before top horizontal stroke
4. Bottom horizontal stroke last
5. Center stroke before wings
6. Horizontal strokes before intersecting vertical strokes
7. Left-falling strokes before right-falling srokes
A final rule can contradict the others:
8. Minor strokes (often) last
Component Order
Most Chinese characters are combinations of simpler, component characters. Usually the two parts are written at top and bottom
or left and right
so that the main two stroke order rules readily apply. Occasionally these rules also conflict with respect to components. When one component is at the bottom-left, and the other at the top-right, the top-right component is sometimes written first.
When there are several components, top components are written first.
These rules usually imply each component is written in its entirety before another component is written. Exceptions may arise when one component divides another,
encompasses another,
or the individual components are no longer discernible in modern writing.
Also, if you are using animated gif's to aid you in learning stroke orders, you can see that the character actually moves in the direction that the stroke is being written. It takes a few seconds to realize it, but check out these and you'll notice the direction of the strokes:
I hope this helps. Learning to write characters is hard work, but very rewarding. I've been a bit of a slacker lately, so maybe your post will give me the kick in the butt that I need!
light487
October 22, 2008, 01:33 AMAwesome. This helps a lot, thanks to both. I did have an explanation similar to the above by Calkins in my Tuttle's Hanzi book but there was no colour coded strokes like above so it didn't make a lot of sense. And of course, I wasn't really ready to tackle Hanzi at that point.
Even now, I look at some of the more complex characters and shy away from them because there are so many strokes. It seems though that the more I learn the basic strokes and components, I can see them in the bigger characters. Once you can see the individual components of the complex characters, it actually doesn't look as hard as it did the first time.
Today's characters are: wo3, zai4, ta1 (he/him), zhe4, zhong1, da4, lai2, shang4, guo2, ge, men and 2 characters I can't identify at a glance... I also can't write or read Hanzi on the computer at work.. so those flash and GIF images really help.
I can see the direction of the animated one now that you have pointed out that the direction exists in the animation. The image itself moves/pans in the direction of the stroke.
I can see now that I have been doing the strokes in the wrong direction most of the time... so I will go back to the basics.. may be work through the Tuttle book one by one, even though the starting frames appear to be basic and useless by themselves. The initial frames, I realise now, train my muscles and brain to remember the component parts of the whole and to more easily break down the complex characters.
calkins
October 22, 2008, 02:11 AMLight, do you have a Palm PDA? If so, download Dragon Character Training. This is an amazing little program that helps you learn to write characters correctly (you actually write the characters, in correct stroke order, on your Palm).
I think there are similar programs for other PDA's, smart phones, iPhones, etc. Highly beneficial, especially when you're out and about with some time to kill.
Also, something that has been mentioned a lot on CPod, would be to learn all the radicals first. This will make learning the characters much easier.
light487
October 22, 2008, 02:56 AMYeh I have an old HP iPAQ but I need to buy a new battery for it because it no longer charges. At least I think that's the problem with it. I have other things I need to spend my money on, like saving for my trip to China next year so it's something I keep putting off...
dreamsie
October 28, 2008, 02:30 PM"Dian" seems to be a mean one. There's no instruction as per which direction it has to go to. For a character 的 I found different instructions to write "dian" in different sources - either left to right or right to left. Is it that with "dian" it doesn't really matter? Or is there any hidden sense I do not manage to see?
hegnauer
October 29, 2008, 10:21 AMHi dreamsie, I got a great help with the chinese/english dictionary www.ncku.com (through Calcins and Henning) You will find a position: "stroke order". when clicking on "play" you get the visualised stroke order.
missworldtraveler
November 06, 2008, 11:10 AMSince I have approximately one year to learn to write 3000 characters, I don't give word order a second thought.
My writing absolutely amazes my Chinese teacher. However, so long as she can read it, she doesn't mind how I write it. She explained, word order doesn't matter with ink pens but it does with a writing brush.
RJ
November 06, 2008, 11:31 AMmissworld,
I would give stroke order a try. It can make it easier to remember how to write the characters. Worth a shot.
mikeinewshot
October 21, 2008, 11:59 PMLight 487
There is a facility on this web site which animates the writing of many of the characters.
http://www.xuezhongwen.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddictbasic
When you see a red brush, click on it, and then click 'write' which will show you both the order and the direction of strokes
Note that there is also a white brush which shows you the stroke order only