Is the correct stroke order important? — Writing Chinese characters
Calligraphy is the basis of writing in Chinese.
In my last article, I mentioned that Taiwanese schoolkids learn to write characters stroke by stroke. They have to learn the “correct” stroke order (「筆畫順序」) for every character; that is to say, a character should not be written in whatever way people like.
It is not easy for learners because sometimes, the order is not very instinctive. The character “turtle” (「龜」) I introduced earlier in the previous article is a good example — I don’t write its strokes in the correct order (which is extremely complicated in this case), and people can still read my writings anyway. So what is the stroke order for?
The stroke order was designed mainly for Chinese calligraphy in the past. Chinese people used to write with a writing brush (「毛筆」), and this stroke order helped them write the characters in the most upright and elegant (「端正優雅」) way .
However, unless you wish to learn Chinese calligraphy, the correct stroke order doesn’t matter much (I hope my Chinese teacher wouldn’t mind what I just told you!). But the stroke order does have a logic flow to it — let’s save this topic for an introductory article about radicals (「部首」) in the future.
Calligraphy was a required (now elective) course in the third or fourth grade of Taiwan’s elementary school since it is considered the origin of Chinese writing. Gaining control over a writing brush alone is difficult enough, yet we have to use it for meticulous line drawing. Calligraphy class is certainly not most schoolkids’ favorite!
I remembered my parents blaming my brother and me for washing our writing brush in the kitchen tank and spilling ink everywhere (those good old memories!). I liked to study but didn’t quite enjoy calligraphy classes. Calligraphy is an art that requires patience and inner peace — which I, of course, could not appreciate at age 8. Back then, I was a quick learner but also quick-tempered.
A calligraphy-like writing style, called “stiff pen calligraphy” (「硬筆字」), is popular among the younger Chinese-speaking generation. This writing style emphasizes on maintaining the beauty of Chinese calligraphy while applying modern writing tools, such as a ballpoint pen, fountain pen, or brush pen.
For those interested in writing in calligraphy but find it troublesome to use a writing brush, stiff pen calligraphy is a good start. Some more good news is that you don’t need a teacher — a practice book alone is enough (an example of a writing practice book).
So this is how native speakers learn to write Chinese characters. Next, I will give you a glimpse of how characters are combined into vocabulary (「詞彙」) and idioms (「成語」). This is definitely not a topic that can be elaborated on in-depth with a single article, but I’ll do my best to find some interesting examples to explain in context.
See you in the next post then!
Hi readers, I hope you find this article interesting!
I post weekly articles about my country Taiwan and Chinese Mandarin. Follow me on Medium for more related articles. You can also follow me on Twitter.
