Learning to write Chinese characters

Hi everybody! Today we are going to learn how to write some Chinese characters.

Chinese characters consist of strokes which should be written in a specific order.

There are several basic rules for stroke order. Do not worry too much about them. Once you start writing your first characters you will be able to remember how to write them without any effort.

Here are a few rules:

1. Write from top to bottom, and left to right
2. Horizontal before vertical
3. Character-spanning strokes last
4. Diagonals right-to-left before diagonals left-to-right
5. Center before outside in vertically symmetrical characters
6. Enclosures before contents
7. Left vertical before enclosing
8. Bottom enclosures last
9. Dots and minor strokes last

Today we will see some examples of the first rule (write from top to bottom, and left to right):

yī

èr

sān

Listen and Repeat

• yī
• èr
• sān