Writing Starts From Horizontal Stroke(一)
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Chinese characters and words are drawing lines on paper or other flat surfaces. There are 4 basic strokes: ‘一丨丿丶’, each stroke has its extensions, which are all listed in following table, these basic and extended strokes formed all Chinese characters and words.
| No. | Basic stroke | Printable Extensions | All Extensions |
| 1 | 一 | 乛フ乁乙 | |
| 2 | 丨 | 丨亅乚 | |
| 3 | 丿 | 丿く | |
| 4 | 丶 | 丶乀 | |
This article is to explain writing order of simple Chinese characters and words, their first strokes are horizontal strokes (一).
Basically Chinese writing is from left to right (→) and up to down (↓), but there are more practical knowledge need to be added in to form complete Chinese writing skills.
In this article, we use color to indicate stroke's writing order, red is the first stroke, followed by green as second stroke, then blue as third, simply as RGB.
Following table has 5 characters (一コ匚厂工), each writing starts from horizontal stroke‘一’，writing order is indicated by color RGB.
| No. | Character | Image | Strokes |
| 1 | 一 |  |
一 |
| 2 | コ |  |
フ一 |
| 3 | 匚 |  |
一乚 |
| 4 | 厂 |  |
一丿 |
| 5 | 工 |  |
一丨一 |
Following 4 simple words are composed with ‘一コ匚工丶’characters, each writing order is indicated by color RGB.
| No. | Word | Image | Characters |
| 1 | 三 |  |
一一一 |
| 2 | 亡 |  |
丶匚 |
| 3 | 广 |  |
丶厂 |
| 4 | 巨 |  |
匚コ |
Following table has 4 characters (十土卄木)，all of them include ‘十’inside, each writing starts from horizontal stroke (一) as well.
Most foreigners normally write ‘十土卄木’starting from vertical stroke (丨), since in English, many characters are written ‘丨’first, such as: b, d, h, k, l, m, n, u, v, w.
But Chinese‘十土卄木’start writing from horizontal stroke (一), so foreigners need to pay special attention to this different.
| No. | Character | Image | Strokes |
| 1 | 十 |  |
一丨 |
| 2 | 土 |  |
一丨一 |
| 3 | 卄 |  |
一丨丨 |
| 4 | 木 |  |
一丨丿乀 |
Following 5 simple words are composed with ‘十土卄木’, each writing order is indicated by color RGB.
| No. | Word | Image | Characters |
| 1 | 卉 |  |
十廾 |
| 2 | 杜 |  |
木土 |
| 3 | 桂 |  |
木土土 |
| 4 | 林 |  |
木木 |
| 5 | 森 |  |
木木木 |
Following 6 simple words are composed with characters:‘一コ匚工十土卄木’, each writing order is indicated by color RGB.
| No. | Word | Image | Characters |
| 1 | 本 |  |
木一 |
| 2 | 苯 |  |
艹木一 |
| 3 | 甘 |  |
卄一一 |
| 4 | 杠 |  |
木工 |
| 5 | 苣 |  |
艹匚コ |
| 6 | 柜 |  |
木匚コ |
Practice 9 characters (一コ匚厂工十土卄木) writing first, then write words with these characters.
The writing skills you learn here can apply to other Chinese words.
More information：
1. 6 Hours to Master Writing & Typing
2. 10 Hours to Speak in Native Chinese Tones