Stroke Patterns

This category of patterns describe individual strokes, stroke direction, and the relationship of multiple strokes when they are combined within a character. Strokes are the simplest building blocks of all Chinese chracters.

Horizontal strokes are drawn left to right. The simplest example, and the only one which we can draw using only this pattern, is the character for the number one (yi1):

Vertical strokes are drawn top to bottom. To illustrate this, I will use the character for the number ten (shi2), which combines a horizontal and vertical stroke:

The order of the strokes, as we will see in pattern s3, is the horizontal stroke followed by the vertical.

When a character is composed of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines, the horizontals are drawn first.

The exception to this rule is that when a horizontal crosses the bottom tip of a vertical, it will be drawn last, as illustrated by 'king' (wang2). The stroke order here is top horizontal, middle horizontal, vertical, and finally bottom horizontal.

The character 'hand' (shou3) is a good example to contrast diagonals and horizontals:

The diagonal on top is drawn from top down, but since this is a very flat diagonal, it's almost as if we're drawing it right to left. Its stroke direction seems to be opposite to the horizontals below it, which follow pattern s1 and therefore are drawn left to right. Also, following pattern s3, the vertical stroke striking through the other three is drawn last.

A unique characteristic of diagonal strokes is that they are almost always arched -- there are virtually no straight diagonals in cursive Chinese (although printed and computerized fonts tend to straighten them). The degree of curvature, however, can vary quite a bit between the various cursive styles.

When two diagonal strokes intersect, the stroke starting in the upper right corner is drawn first. This order results in the second stroke finishing on the bottom right, keeping with the general "top down, left to right" progression.

The crossing diagonals are featured in many characters, among them 'literature' (wen2) , 'violent' (xiong1), 'to wish' (xi1), and 'to study' (xue4):

This pattern refers to a horizontal stroke that turns sharply at a point and continues downward. The top right bracket is always a single stroke. An important implication of this pattern is that squares and rectangles, which are a very common feature of Chinese characters, are made up of not four but only three strokes. Looking at the simplest example, 'mouth' (kou3):

... the left vertical is drawn first, followed by the top right bracket, and finally the bottom horizontal.

Here are some other examples of the top left bracket, 'sword' (dao1), 'child' (zi3), 'month' (yue3), 'horse' (ma3) and 'rain' (yu3):

Note that in each of the above, the top right bracket is distorted, bent or arched in a different way. This is to give the character a balanced, aesthetic quality. The important thing to recognize here is the common pattern that ties together all of the examples: a horizontal line that turns sharply downward, drawn as a single stroke without lifting the pen.

For completeness, we should mention the left bottom bracket, or just left bracket for short. It is a vertical (or diagonal) stroke that starts downward, then turns sharply in a point and continues horizontally (or diagonally) towards the right. It also comes in a variety of distorted shapes, as seen in 'woman' (nü2), 'mountain' (shan1) and 'illusion' (huan4):

It's important to note that left brackets are not used to construct squares or rectangles. However, they are used in "open box", or "fork" shapes, as seen in 'out' (chu1), 'craftsman' (jiang4), 'concave' (ao1), and 'giant' (jü4):

exercise: Stroke Counting

Stroke counting is a very useful skill, as it is necessary to quickly locate characters in Chinese radical and stroke-count dictionaries. Doing it accurately can also be a bit tricky and frustrating at first. Armed with the patterns we've learned so far, we should be able to do a pretty good job of it.

Consider 'illusion' (huan4) above. In order of strokes, it consists of two left brackets, a small diagonal stroke, and a top right bracket. The number of strokes therefore is just four.

Now look at 'concave' (ao1). Starting in the upper left corner, we start with a top right bracket, followed by a short horizontal stroke. We now move lift the pen, and draw the short vertical stroke from the top down. Lifting the pen again, we draw another top right bracket. Finally, we complete the character with a left bracket all the way from the upper left to the bottom right corner. The total number of strokes is five.

Repeat this exercise for all of the examples above. If you miscount, don't despair, just try to convince yourself how the patterns above can produce the correct stroke count.

See the solutions.

There are curves of many shapes and sizes in Chinese characters, and it doesn't really do them justice to lump them into a single pattern. To be fair I will mention a few categories of curves and give some examples of each.

Curves are different from the arched diagonal strokes we've seen in the previous patterns. Their main distinguishing mark is the hook that turns sharply upward at the tail end.

The single twist is the most common curve. It appears in 'nine' (jiu3), 'fur' (mao2), 'heart' (xin1), 'pottery' (wa3) and 'chaotic' (luan4):

The single twist is often paired with an arched diagonal. This combination, shown as the first symbol below, is in fact a radical sometimes referred to as "legs". "Legs" appears in many other characters, among them 'son' (er2), 'light' (guang1), 'tiger' (hu3) and 'to compete' (jing1):

In traditional Chinese, "legs" is not a character by itself, although it's used as a phonetic symbol to represent the er sound. In simplified Chinese, it is a valid character, used as the simplified form of 'son' (er2), and also as the word ending er that is the distinct hallmark of the Beijing dialect.

Another common curved element is sometimes called "ears" for obvious reasons. The interesting thing about "ears" is that it is the abbreviated form of two different radicals. Which radical it represents depends on which side of the character it appears on. On the left, it means "mound", as in 'near' (fu4) and 'defend' (fang2). On the right it means "city", as in 'that' (na4) and 'nation' (bang1):

Finally, this next group of characters all contain a single curved stroke, which doesn't really have a common name, so we'll call it "tail" in keeping with the anatomical theme of legs and ears. The "tail" looks a lot like the arched diagonal strokes in pattern s4, but the hook at the end of it tells us that it belongs with the other curves in this pattern. "Tails" are always drawn from top left to lower right. Some examples of its usage are 'people' (min2), 'low' (di1), 'represent' (dai4), 'become' (cheng2) and 'money' (qian2).

Patterns in Chinese Characters

Stroke Patterns