Learn Chinese Characters

What Are Strokes?

Every Chinese character is composed by lines called strokes.

A stroke is a mark traced by a single movement of the pen. Writing each stroke (simple or complex), from its beginning to its end, you need not lift your pen from the paper.

It's important also to respect the direction of each stroke. For example, you cannot draw the horizontal stroke (see below) from right to left, but from left to right.

A Chinese character might be composed by only one or even by more than thirty strokes.

In the following table you see the shape of all simple strokes with their name, writing direction and some example characters containing them.

SIMPLE STROKES

Stroke Name (and direction) Examples dot (downwards a bit to the right) left dot (downwards a bit to the left) long dot (falling from left to rigth) horizontal (left to right) vertical (downwards) left-falling (falling from right to left) flat left-falling (falling slightly from right to left) vertical left-falling (downwards slightly to the left) right-falling (falling from left to right) flat right-falling (falling slightly from left to right) rising (upwards from left to right) horizontal hook (from left to right plus downwards hook) vertical hook (downwards plus rising hook to the left) curved hook (downwards plus rising hook to the left) diagonal hook (downwards plus upwards hook) lying hook (falling from left to right plus upwards hook)