{"id":21576,"date":"2019-07-05T02:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T01:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saporedicina.com\/english\/?p=21576"},"modified":"2022-03-16T10:09:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T09:09:51","slug":"writing-chinese-rules-strokes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saporedicina.com\/english\/writing-chinese-rules-strokes\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Chinese: Basic Rules and the Order of Strokes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

Chinese writing has a fascination all its own: from the ornamental aspect, which all can appreciate even without being an expert, to the symbolic value which is exotic to us, to the long tradition that the characters bring from over two millennia of history full of meaning and even magic. <\/p>\n

There are those who don’t consider it so much as a form of writing the words of a spoken language as much as a system for “writing the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

In this article I will speak to you about the rules through which this “world” is created on paper: starting from an alphabetic writing<\/a> you’ll be used to, up to simple signs that indicate sounds whose combinations create the written text, while the question becomes a little more complicated for Chinese.<\/p>\n

\n

Chinese writing – Index<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Order and direction of writing<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. The strokes<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. The classification of strokes<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. The combination of strokes<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. The order of strokes<\/a>\n
  6. Why learn the order of strokes?<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Curiosities<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

    <\/p>\n

    <\/strong><\/p>\n

    Order and direction of writing<\/h2>\n

    First of all, let’s disprove a common misconception: modern Chinese is written from left to right and from top to bottom, horizontally just like western languages<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    The order of right to left vertically was used in the past (you can easily find books written in this way) and derived from the use of bamboo strips on which the first Chinese texts were written, and later by other “vertical” supports, but it is no longer used in everyday life.<\/p>\n

    This order from left to right and top to bottom<\/strong> is generally also maintained (which we’ll see later on) for the lines within a character.<\/p>\n

    Historically, characters are conformed into a square structure<\/strong>: it’s worth saying that, regardless of the number of lines that make it up, they will always take up the same amount of space within the text.<\/p>\n

    This did not happen in the early forms of Chinese writing where the more complex characters took up more space compared to those made up of fewer lines until regular writing (\u6977\u4e66 K\u01ceish\u016b) regulated the proportions between characters.<\/p>\n

    Lastly, the characters are written without spaces <\/a> between words and intervals are only for punctuation, which has been introduced only in relatively recent times (at the beginning of last century).<\/p>\n

    The strokes<\/h2>\n

    The strokes are simply the dots (\u70b9 di\u01cen) and lines (\u7ebf xi\u00e0n) that make up the characters.<\/p>\n

    When talking about a stroke<\/strong>, in Chinese \u4e00\u7b14 (y\u012bb\u01d0), \u4e00\u753b (y\u012bhu\u00e0) or \u7b14\u753b (b\u01d0hu\u00e0, also written as \u7b14\u5212 with the same pronunciation), it refers to what is written each time the pen (\u7b14 b\u01d0) or brush (\u6bdb\u7b14 m\u00e1ob\u01d0) touches the paper up to when it is lifted from the page.<\/p>\n

    The two phases are respectively called \u843d\u7b14 (lu\u00f2b\u01d0) \u201cresting the pen\u201d and \u8d77\u7b14 (q\u01d0b\u01d0), \u201craising the pen\u201d. If the tool is not lifted from the medium on which it is written, it doesn’t matter how many curves the line has, it will always be just one stroke.<\/p>\n

    To give a quick example, one of the characters you learn to write very early on when learning Chinese and that you can mess up quite easily is \u53e3 (k\u01d2u), \u201cmouth\u201d: seeing it as a square, instinctively we’d draw it with four lines, while in reality it’s formed by three strokes, as you can see in the image below.<\/p>\n

    \"stroke<\/p>\n

    The first stroke is vertical to the left, followed by a type of upside-down L written without taking the pen off the page, and lastly the horizontal line that closes the square.<\/p>\n

    Often printed characters “flatten” the brushstrokes, making it difficult to distinguish the strokes; we’re not speaking then of handwriting, where various types of cursive tend to “fuse\u201d everything together in a single sign that at first glance might seem little more than a scribble. <\/p>\n

    There are however various types of strokes: knowing them can help you distinguish them and improve your ability in reading and writing.<\/p>\n

    The classification of strokes<\/h2>\n

    As was already mentioned, the stroke is the smallest unit that makes up a character<\/a>. The ancient characters were not built<\/a> according to the concept of a \u201cstroke\u201d; in the writing of seals \u7bc6\u4e66 (Zhu\u00e0nsh\u016b), for example, the shape of the strokes (\u7b14\u5f62 b\u01d0x\u00edng) had curved lines and together it was difficult to distinguish when a single line started and ended.<\/p>\n

    From the writing of the scribes (\u96b6\u4e66 L\u00ecsh\u016b) onward the lines were standardized until reaching its present form. With regular writing (\u6977\u4e66 K\u01ceish\u016b, going back to the Han Dynasty) the \u6c38\u5b57\u516b\u6cd5 (yo\u0148gz\u00ec b\u0101f\u01ce) system was born<\/strong>, the \u201csystem of eight basic strokes contained in the character \u6c38 (y\u01d2ng)\u201d. This system is still used in calligraphy lessons (\u66f8\u6cd5, sh\u016bf\u01ce).<\/p>\n

    Here’s a list of the eight strokes and their characteristics (see the figure below for a graphical example of each stroke):<\/p>\n

    \"stroke<\/p>\n

    1. The horizontal stroke \u6a2a (h\u00e9ng)<\/strong>, one of the few strokes that is also a character on its own, the character for the number 1, \u4e00 (y\u012b). Although it’s often written as a simple horizontal segment, in handwriting and more accurate fonts you see two \u201cbulges\u201d at the end of the segment, caused by touching and raising the brush. While the first bulge is almost inevitable, in the lifting phase you can also end with a “dot” as in other strokes, in this case by mistake. There are at least two ways for getting the second “bulge\u201d: the first is by regulating the pressure of the pen or brush, increasing the amount of ink used; other calligraphy teachers achieve this with a movement of the brush, which is raised diagonally up to the right, then down to the right and lastly returning to its horizontal stroke (you can see it in the image below).<\/p>\n

    2. The vertical stroke \u7ad6 (sh\u00f9)<\/strong> is simply a vertical segment. It always presents a bulge at the top due to the pressure of the brush, while below it finishes in a “dot” towards the right or left (even in printed fonts). It is found combined with the horizontal stroke \u6a2a (h\u00e9ng), in the character for 10, \u5341 (sh\u00ed).<\/p>\n

    3. The dot \u70b9 (di\u01cen)<\/strong>, from which the character gets its name, \u70b9 contains a good 3 of these (the first, as we will see, is a different type of stroke). This isn’t a simple “point” with a circular shape; the brush is dragged a little toward the right to obtain an almost triangular form. It’s also seen in the number 6, \u516d (li\u00f9).<\/p>\n

    4. The hook \u94a9 (g\u014du)<\/strong> can be added to other strokes by modifying the last part. To give two examples, the center vertical stroke \u7ad6 (sh\u00f9)\tin \u6c34 (shu\u01d0) goes up into a point. The hook could be towards the right or left and usually follows the direction of the stroke that joins it. In the character \u6211 (w\u01d2) there are two: the first goes towards the left, the second to the right.<\/p>\n

    5. The rising stroke to the right or left end in a dot, \u63d0(t\u00ed)<\/strong>, is, in brief, a rising stroke that ends in a quick raising of the brush. In this way it creates a dot towards the top: you can see it in the character \u63d0, the tilted stroke below the left part \u624c.<\/p>\n

    6. The curvature \u6298 (zh\u00e9)<\/strong>, which is also combined with other strokes, is what makes it hard to tell if it’s a single stroke or two connected strokes. How many strokes make up the character \u9a6c (m\u01ce)? On instinct, we count at least 5, but really there are three: the first is a type of upside-down L, the second is the vertical-horizontal-vertical-hook, the third and last is the horizontal line in the center (you can see it more clearly in the image).<\/p>\n

    7. The descending stroke from right to left, ending in a dot \u6487 (pi\u011b)<\/strong>, like the righthand stroke in the character \u4eba (r\u00e9n).<\/p>\n

    8. The descending stroke from left to right, which ends “flat” \u637a (n\u00e0)<\/strong>, as in the second stroke of \u4eba (r\u00e9n).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In 1988 the \u73b0\u4ee3\u4e2d\u6587\u901a\u7528\u5b57\u8868 (Xi\u00e0nd\u00e0i Zh\u014dngw\u00e9n t\u014dngy\u00f2ng z\u00ecbi\u01ceo, \u201ctable of commonly used characters in modern Chinese”) consolidated, among other things, the categories of Chinese strokes, which from eight became five.<\/p>\n

    In this new classification, \u70b9 (di\u01cen) and \u637a (n\u00e0) have been reunited into a single category, because both are strokes descending to the right or left, differentiated only by their length; \u6a2a (h\u00e9ng) and \u63d0 (t\u00ed), at the same time, they were merged; lastly, \u6298 (zh\u00e9) and \u94a9 (g\u014du) became a single type of stroke that doesn’t have a curve.<\/p>\n

    This new method was called \u201c\u672d\u201d \u5b57\u6cd5 (\u201czh\u00e1\u201d z\u00ecf\u01ce)<\/strong>. The new strokes are:<\/p>\n