Order of Strokes of Some Chinese Characters

[MelissaLuc2003]

Hi,

1. Why is the word 里 is written as 甲 first followed by 二？ I've always written 里 with 日 first, then 十，and finally 一 at the bottom. I found out the order of my strokes are incorrect according to Pleco.

2. Why is the word nine 九， is written with 丿first then 折 zhe where as the word 力 power，is written with " 一 亅" first, then followed by 丿？ 九 and 力 both have two strokes, but the order of 丿is written first in the former, i.e. 九。

Thank you,
Melissa.

 

[FrancoisTaipei]

I see that the components of 里 are 田 and 土.
Actually looking at the stroke order in Pleco, it starts with 日, and immediately add a vertical stroke making 甲. And it is exactly what you describe. Seems you are doing it correctly.
日 + 十 + 一, that's how it says on Pleco.

 

[Kaimi]

1. Why is the word 里 is written as 甲 first followed by 二？ I've always written 里 with 日 first, then 十，and finally 一 at the bottom. I found out the order of my strokes are incorrect according to Pleco.

I agree, Pleco's stroke order is not even consistent with the one shown on the Outliers Dictionary, which is the order I've learned:

Many sites like http://bishun.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=里 show Pleco's word order, so I guess both are valid.

日 + 十 + 一, that's how it says on Pleco.

I don't think so, because 十 order is first 一 then丨

 

[Shun]

Indeed, there are some definite differences between stroke order databases. At least they agree for most characters' stroke orders—maybe for 98% of them.

 

[mikelove]

We go by the PRC standard 《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》, which does indeed have 里 in that order; Outlier are based in Taiwan and so I expect are following the Taiwan standard here.

We might eventually consider adding an option for PRC versus Taiwan (versus HK) stroke order, but to be honest, while they're very vocal, 繁體字 users are < 10% of our customer base, so it's a little hard to make that a priority. (maybe if we charged for it separately?)

 

[FrancoisTaipei]

I don't think so, because 十 order is first 一 then丨

I don't understand... 十 is 一 then丨, that's correct. I didn't say the opposite... Anyway, I found op's comment and explanation exactly equal to Pleco's stroke order, and that's the way I would naturally have written it too. There may be more than one way of writing it though, as I see some of my Taiwanese friends don't always write the way I learned at school.

 

[MelissaLuc2003]

We go by the PRC standard 《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》, which does indeed have 里 in that order; Outlier are based in Taiwan and so I expect are following the Taiwan standard here.

We might eventually consider adding an option for PRC versus Taiwan (versus HK) stroke order, but to be honest, while they're very vocal, 繁體字 users are < 10% of our customer base, so it's a little hard to make that a priority. (maybe if we charged for it separately?)

Mike, @mikelove I love learning traditional Chinese form. I've been learning it on my own, since the Confucius Institute only teaches Simplified Writing. Please keep the Traditional Chinese Form. All my friends from HK and Taiwan and many overseas Chinese also use the Traditional Writing. Much more beautiful and elegant in my opinion. Thanks, Melissa.

 

[MelissaLuc2003]

Indeed, there are some definite differences between stroke order databases. At least they agree for most characters' stroke orders—maybe for 98% of them.

Shun, any thoughts of the word order of nine and strength? 九 和 力. It was my second question. Thanks, Melissa.

 

[Shun]

Hi Melissa,

I've always accepted them to be like that, with the 力 following the rule that you draw the horizontal line first, then the vertical line through it, and the 九 following the left-to-right "rule" because you write wider strokes to the right, and you would sort of lose the feeling of proportion and orientation if you were to draw 九 in the reverse order. So I feel that the right stroke order is often just the one that makes it easiest to write a well-proportioned character.

Cheers,

Shun

 

[MelissaLuc2003]

Hi Melissa,

I've always accepted them to be like that, with the 力 following the rule that you draw the horizontal line first, then the vertical line through it, and the 九 following the left-to-right "rule" because you write wider strokes to the right, and you would sort of lose the feeling of proportion and orientation if you were to draw 九 in the reverse order. So I feel that the right stroke order is often just the one that makes it easiest to write a well-proportioned character.

Cheers,

Shun

Hi Shun,

Your reasoning makes a lot sense. The right stroke order is the one that makes it easiest to write a well-proportioned character. These are exceptions to the general stroke rules, very sensible. Thank you so much Shun! You seem to have a lot of insight about the Chinese language. Did you have a degree in Chinese language and literature?

 

[Shun]

Hi Melissa,

thank you & you're very welcome! This reasoning was just in my head. For 九, it would also be strange to have to move the tip of the pen/brush far back to the upper left to complete the character, if one were to draw it in reverse order. One good teacher at my university explained that for the 舟 character component, there is a dispute whether to draw the dots and line one by one from the top down, or whether to cut through the middle of the character with the horizontal line first, and then draw the dots, to get the proportions just right. Perhaps I got the general idea from that.

That's correct, I (almost) have a degree in Chinese studies.

Cheers,

Shun

 

[MelissaLuc2003]

Hi Melissa,

thank you & you're very welcome! This reasoning was just in my head. For 九, it would also be strange to have to move the tip of the pen/brush far back to the upper left to complete the character, if one were to draw it in reverse order. One good teacher at my university explained that for the 舟 character component, there is a dispute whether to draw the dots and line one by one from the top down, or whether to cut through the middle of the character with the horizontal line first, and then draw the dots, to get the proportions just right. Perhaps I got the general idea from that.

That's correct, I (almost) have a degree in Chinese studies.

Cheers,

Shun

Hi Shun,

Thanks again. I write 舟 from top to bottom. Where did you study? Was it a Chinese University?

Melissa.

 

[Shun]

Hi Melissa,

then you‘re probably in the majority. Not quite, I studied at a European university, but it was a Chinese lecturer and calligrapher giving a Chinese character course who told me this.

Best,

Shun

 

[agewisdom]

I agree, Pleco's stroke order is not even consistent with the one shown on the Outliers Dictionary, which is the order I've learned:

View attachment 2942 View attachment 2940

Many sites like http://bishun.strokeorder.info/mandarin.php?q=里 show Pleco's word order, so I guess both are valid.



I don't think so, because 十 order is first 一 then丨

@Shun Wait a moment... I saw something interesting. Why is the font here a more natural looking one like in Tofu learn. All I get in my PLECO is a robotic ugly looking font. How is this done?

 

[Shun]

Hi agewisdom,

I like how Pleco has a lot of easter egg-like features, that are reachable by tap-holding, small buttons, and so on. There's a small button at the lower left that lets you switch between Song and Kai fonts. See this screenshot:



Android should have this, too.

Cheers,

Shun

 

[agewisdom]

Ah... thanks. Yep, that did the trick. I think one needs to install the Kaiti font under the experimental feature though...
The characters look so beautiful now as compared to the (dare I say), quite unsightly default mechanical font.

 

[Shun]

You're welcome. Let's say it always depends on what you use the font for. I feel that for printed books, a Kai font wouldn't provide enough visual structure. Song guides you better with its many straight vertical and horizontal lines.

 

[agewisdom]

Song guides you better with its many straight vertical and horizontal lines.

Ah, so the default in Pleco is the Song font?

 

[Shun]

In most OSes, it is the default Chinese font. I haven‘t done a fresh install of Pleco in quite a while, so I don‘t know.

 

[mikelove]

Default in Pleco is Song, yes. Kai is experimental / not heavily checked - based on the open-source Make Me A Hanzi project that also powers Inkstone - plus, while we feel pretty confident that its use of Arphic's open-source Kai fonts is legal, there are indications that Arphic themselves might not think so, and so we're reluctant to default to using it while there remains the possibility we might receive a C&D letter from them + be forced to abruptly pull it from our catalog.

But we're working on a brand new set of Kai stroke order diagrams, which will be more thoroughly checked, cover many more characters, and not have any licensing uncertainty around them, and once those are ready they'll probably replace Song as the default (also saving us some royalties in the process). Probably not until after 4.0, though. (the licensing is in place, but we haven't found the spare programming time to build the editor app which the people we'd hire to key in / check them would need to use to create them from the font we licensed)