Chinese (Mandarin)/Writing in Chinese
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[edit] Writing in Chinese
Learning to read and write Chinese characters will probably be your largest obstacle in this course. Since Chinese has no alphabet with reusable letters, there is no way around lots of writing practice and rote memorization. Although pinyin is valuable for learning the pronunciation of characters, the number of homonyms in the Chinese language would make a total replacement of characters impractical.
While difficult and time consuming, learning Chinese characters can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience that provides a window into Chinese culture. The writing system has been in continuous use for over 3000 years, with the characters essentially unchanged since the 7th century. There is a story in every character.
Additionally, because of the difficulty, people tend to be that much more impressed by foreigners who take it upon themselves to learn Chinese characters.
[edit] Stroke Order
Every character has a specific stroke order to it. It may seem at first like this would make writing characters harder by being one more thing to remember, but definite stroke orders actually help you to remember characters. The "motor memory" you develop from following the same order every time helps develop a rhythm that flows through until the end of the character. In contrast, just attacking a character with a random stroke order each time might leave you with lots of half-completed characters!
The principal rules to keep in mind are shown in the chart below, with specifics following.
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Principal rules
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1. Write from left to right, and from top to bottom.
As a general rule, characters are written from left to right, and from top to bottom. For example, among the first characters usually learned is the word "one," which is written with a single horizontal line: 一. This character has one stroke which is written from left to right (see image).
The character for "two" has two strokes: 二. In this case, both are written from left to right, but the top stroke is written first. The character for "three" has three strokes: 三. Each stroke is written from left to right, starting with the uppermost stroke.
This rule applies also to more complex characters. For example, 校 can be divided into two. The entire left side (木) is written before the right side (交). There are some exceptions to this rule, mainly occurring when the right side of a character has a lower enclosure (see below), for example 誕 and 健. In this case, the left side is written first, followed by the right side, and finally the lower enclosure.
When there are upper and lower components, the upper components are written first, then the lower components, as in 品 and 襲.
2. Horizontal lines are written from left to right; vertical lines are written from top to bottom
3. Horizontal before vertical
When strokes cross, horizontal strokes are usually written before vertical strokes: the character for "ten," 十, has two strokes written as follows: 一 → 十.
4. There are some circumstances where the vertical stroke is written before a horizontal, such as when the character ends in a horizontal stroke at the bottom. E.g., 上 is written 一 then | then _.
, Chinese: rén). The character has two strokes, the first shown here in dark, and the second in red. The black area represents the starting position of the writing instrument.5. Cutting strokes last
Vertical strokes that "cut" through a character are written after the horizontal strokes they cut through, as in 書 and 筆.
Horizontal strokes that cut through a character are written last, as in 母 and 海.
6. Diagonals right-to-left before left-to-right
Right-to-left diagonals (ノ) are written before left-to-right diagonals (乀): 文.
7. Centre verticals before outside "wings"
Vertical centre strokes are written before vertical or diagonal outside strokes; left outside strokes are written before right outside strokes: 小 and 水.
8. Outside before inside
Outside enclosing strokes are written before inside strokes; bottom strokes are written last (see 4): 日 and 口. This applies also to characters that have no bottom stroke, such as 同 and 月.
9. Left vertical before enclosing
Left vertical strokes are written before enclosing strokes. In the following two examples, the leftmost vertical stroke (|) is written first, followed by the uppermost and rightmost lines (┐) (which are written as one stroke): 日 and 口.
10. Bottom enclosing strokes last
Bottom enclosing strokes are always written last: 道, 週, 画.
11. Dots and minor strokes last
Minor strokes are usually written last, as the small "dot" in the following: 玉.
If you're not sure about the stroke order of a Chinese character, you can usually look it up in an online Chinese dictionary. nciku has stroke order animations for almost all Simplified Chinese characters (look up a single-character word and scroll down to the bottom of the page); there are probably other dictionaries that do the same for Traditional Chinese.
