# Does stroke order matter?



## Scharrelkip

Hello 

I found the nín character very hard to write, so I searched on google for a simple tutorial. I now know how to write it, but someone replied with
that the stroke order was wrong. Does this really matter? I mean, isn't the result that matters?

Thanks in advance and greetings,
Scharrelkip


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## xiaolijie

> I mean, isn't the result that matters?


Yes, the result matters; and the result is the result of good stroke order. Imagine you writing the Latin alphabet all in the wrong order. Nobody would then be able to understand what you write when you write it at normal speed (and you won't be able to understand theirs!). 
Chinese only accentuates this ten times or even worse. My advice for starting learners of Chinese: If you want to learn to write, don't take shortcuts.


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## ouzhantekin

I also would like to contribute to this by saying that in my opinion, paying attention to the stroke order while writing is essential because your hands and the nerves in your hands also learns along with you, so that after practice when you write the same character next time you will feel like your hand is goin forth already without you thinking too much..


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## ouzhantekin

And believe me "nin" is not really hard to write


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## strad

There are quite a few characters that i write using incorrect stroke order, but my written chinese is very legible so i never thought it was important to learn the correct stroke order. 

However, I now use the handwriting input method on my iPhone, and stroke order is VERY important for how the software recognizes what you write. I can write a very clear character using my incorrect stroke order and the software often fails to find the character I want, while my friends or relatives can scribble a barely legible cursive mess using the correct order and the software recognizes it everytime 

So yes, i would try to learn the correct order when learning new characters.


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## terredepomme

And keep in mind that there are tricky stroke orders as well...
For example 心 and 必 have completely different stroke orders.
(But you can technically write 必 in the same way as you would write 心.)
But I think there are many Chinese, Japanese, and certainly much more Koreans who may not be aware of the difference, because, in our computer age, handwriting is getting rarer and rarer.


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## Zhi

Depends on the reason why you learn Chinese. If you tell me about why you're learning Chinese, I could tell you if stroke order is important. For 99.9% Chinese people who live in China, it's completely useless to know stroke order after elementary school - They still know it though, because they all went to elementary school once, but it really is useless ever since.


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## SuperXW

Zhi said:


> Depends on the reason why you learn Chinese. If you tell me about why you're learning Chinese, I could tell you if stroke order is important. For 99.9% Chinese people who live in China, it's completely useless to know stroke order after elementary school - They still know it though, because they all went to elementary school once, but it really is useless ever since.



The stroke orders would be burnt into your subconscious once finishing your elementary school, so you can write the characters "normally". Imaging how a writer with no knowledge of stroke orders writes. The connections among his strokes would be so strange that makes harder for others to read. He cannot write fast, nor understand others' handwriting 连笔字.


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## claireyeung

We were once tortured by stroke orders in primary school-all the exercises and tests. But once you get through all this, it will make it much easier for you to learn more characters and more complicated ones, because a good command of stroke orders will help you understand the structure of chinese characters better and then remember them more easily.
 Chinese characters are hieroglyphics, so writing chinese is kind of like drawing. And there is always a certain order in drawing, isn't there? Plus, correct stroke orders will be of great importance if you want to study calligraphy such as 楷书、行书.


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## Dragonseed

There are just a few simple rules that actually allow you to know in which order the strokes come for almost any character. Top to bottom, left to right, central part then the sides for symmetrical constructs, and which of the horizontal or vertical comes first depending on whether they cross each other or not, etc.

This page (http://zhongwen.com/shufa/index.html) is one of many giving you the rules and how to articulate some apparent "contradictions".

With these, and few examples to practice, you should almost never need help to know how to write Chinese characters...

I agree there are a few puzzling ones (I am quite sure I got 必 wrong. I'll have to go and check this one), but this is way simpler than spelling in many other languages!

Practice a little, and you'll forget that this was ever a problem for you!


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## YangMuye

Dragonseed said:


> This page (http://zhongwen.com/shufa/index.html) is one of many giving you the rules and how to articulate some apparent "contradictions".
> ......
> I agree there are a few puzzling ones (I am quite sure I got 必 wrong. I'll have to go and check this one), but this is way simpler than spelling in many other languages!


Do you mean checking this one? http://lost-theory.org/ocrat/chargif/search.py?string=必
It's seems really awkward to me.

I suggest you write in this order: “*丿,乚,`(top),ヽ(left),ヽ(right)*”  or “*`(top), 丿, 乚,ヽ(left),ヽ(right)*”. (The last two dots should point to the center.)
But 心 is usually “*ヽ(left), 乚, ヽヽ(right)*”( I'm not sure)

And if you really want to write Character well, don't imitate 宋体. Try 楷书 or 行书.


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## Lugubert

If I've understood handwriting correctly, the more cursive types are heavily dependent on stroke order. So if you want to learn to decipher even not too extreme handwriting, you'd better learn stroke order.

The Wenlin software doesn't like wrong order in its handwriting recognition, but PlecoDict is quite permissive.


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## SuperXW

Scharrelkip said:


> Hello
> 
> I found the nín character very hard to write, so I searched on google for a simple tutorial. I now know how to write it, but someone replied with
> that the stroke order was wrong. Does this really matter? I mean, isn't the result that matters?
> 
> Thanks in advance and greetings,
> Scharrelkip


When learning how to write a Chinese character like nin2, you'd better have learnt the very basic ones before, not just mimic the character showing on your computer. You need to learn 人, 尔, 心 respectively with their correct stroke orders and positions and meanings first. 人 is the image of a person. 尔 means “you”. 心 is the icon of a heart, etc. 
Only then you can really understand how 您 is constructed, and the way to write it properly.


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## viajero_canjeado

Call me crazy, but I've got a solid understanding of stroke order and still have a tough time reading locals' 草寫的字。。Probably haven't practiced calligraphy enough.


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## SuperXW

viajero_canjeado said:


> Call me crazy, but I've got a solid understanding of stroke order and still have a tough time reading locals' 草寫的字。。Probably haven't practiced calligraphy enough.



Some people do write in "running style" or "grass style"... It is beautiful but indeed hard for most people to recognize, unless you are from the few ones who had learn it. -.- 
I just had such a problem recognizing some applicant's name on a form, and I consider it's his own fault. -.-


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