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mkengel -

I know that there differences between the stroke order of identical Kanji/Hanzi in Japanese and
Chinese.
1) Does anybody know an URL with some explanations or rules ?

2) Are there also differences between the writing of Hanzi in Taiwan/Hongkong/Mainland China ? If
yes, please give some examples or an URL.

Thank you
Michael



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skylee -

Here is the Taiwan standard for traditional characters (follow it and I have no problem inputting
to my handset using stroke order method) -> http://www.edu.tw/EDU_WEB/EDU_MGT/MA...n/bs1.htm?open










JVGruat -



Quote:

I know that there differences between the stroke order of identical Kanji/Hanzi in Japanese and
Chinese. Does anybody know an URL with some explanations or rules ?

I have been followinf for a few years both the Chinese and the Japanese language French speaking
discussion groups on usenet - Japanese because of the kanji, of course - and noticed in a few
instances reference made to differences between Japanese and Chinese stroke orders for selected
characters - without further specifying whether this indeed resulted from different basic rules.

So thanks to your question I tried to understand it a bit better - which resulted in
http://www.jvgruat.com/Chine/strokes.pdf.

According to my sources, nine "rules" were identified for Japanese stroke order, 8 for Chinese.
Seven rules can be considered as common to Japanese and Chinese. This means however that one
Chinese rule is not formalized in Japanese theory "Minor stroke usually comes last", and two
Japanese rules have no formal Chinese equivalent - "vertical strokes drawn through the center are
written last"; "strokes which cut through the middle are written last".

This may explain some discrepancies. Another important point maybe the requirement, in Chinese,
that "usually each component (of a character) is written in its entirety before another component
is written" since the identification of components might differ from one language to the other.

So, a lot of uncertainties remain - at least for me !










mkengel -

First of all - thank you for the two replies.
Just an example of a simple difference of the Kanji/Hanzi stroke order (see attachment):
Japanese write 1-2-3 while Chinese write 1-3-2
There is some handwriting software which stumbles over such differences, e.g. not finding a Hanzi
character if you write it the Japanese way.
Thanks for any help - I will collect the info and release it to the list later.
Michael










volga_volga -

I have similar problem (stroke order differences) but between two hanzi sources.
Sometimes the book I am using (Most Common Chinese Radicals) by Zhang Pengpeng, Sinolingua, shows
slightly different stroke order from that used in ZDT (Zhongwen Development Tool).

I wonder why, and I wonder which one is the right one?










HashiriKata -



Quote:

I wonder why, and I wonder which one is the right one?

Just like in everything else, there are sometimes variations and the variations are all "correct".
Take the example given by mkengel above, there are two established ways of writing the first part
of the character. One is the stroke order you would use to approach 土 and the other is the order
you would use for 王, and these two orders are both well established and both leading to the same
end-result, so both of them are fine (It's worth noting that the ways we write complicated
characters are all derived from the ways we write simple ones). Our personal preference is based
mainly on which variation we happen to be taught or familiar with first, and it'd therefore be
narrow-minded to insist that one is more "correct" than the other.










volga_volga -

thanks! I am definitely not narrow-minded as far as stroke order is concerned. it's just that
after having read in many places that there is a certain stroke order in writing Chinese I saw to
different ones and was puzzled... it's more clear now that does not have to be 100%by the (same)
book.










HashiriKata -

Sorry Volga, I don't mean any of us here is narrow-minded about this. When I was writing the post,
it occurred to me that some "teachers" do insist on one way at the expense of others; and I was
only noting down the thought, but rather clumsily










Jose -

Here are some discrepancies I have come across as a student of Chinese over the last few years
when comparing textbooks from the Mainland and Taiwan as well as watching people write by hand.

1. 戈 I originally learned to write this character, either isolated or as a side component, with
the dot on the top-right corner last. However, Skylee's link shows a different order, starting as
弋 and finishing with the stroke at the bottom. This is apparently the standard stroke order in
Taiwan, whereas the one I use is probably (I think) the standard one on the Mainland.

2. 里 is written by most Chinese people as 甲 followed by the two bottom horizontal strokes.
Some textbooks show a different stroke order, beginning with 旦and then crossing with the
vertical stroke before doing the last horizontal stroke at the bottom. I am not sure if this may
be a Mainland vs. Taiwan/HK difference, or just a case of people writing differently from what the
books say.

3. There are also a number of characters that have ended up standardised in slightly different
ways in simplified and in traditional characters. In these cases, the differences in the stroke
order manifest themselves in a subtly different printed form. Typical cases are 別, 屆, 角, and
(sometimes) 周.

4. In traditional characters like 學, 興, 彎 or 樂 I always write the middle part before the
sides when doing the top (e.g. 樂 = 白 + 幺 + 幺 + 木). That's the way they taught me to
write these characters a long time ago, and seems to be the prescribed order, according to
Skylee's link. However, some Taiwan/HK/Mc people prefer to do the top of these characters from
left to right (樂 = 幺 + 白 + 幺 + 木).

5. Also in traditional characters, the plant radical 艹 (three strokes in the simplified
standard) is written as two crosses (i.e. four strokes). I would expect the stroke order to be
like two 十 (horizontal + vertical + horizontal + vertical). However, I remember using a textbook
that would show the correct order as vertical + horizontal + vertical + horizontal, which I find a
bit strange. I always hesitate with this radical when I write in traditional characters.










nipponman -

Oh, I didn't know there were any differences b/w chinese and japanese stroke order. When I learned
(Japanese) stroke order rules about 7 years ago, I stuck with them even though they are just
generalizations and don't apply to all characters. It doesn't really matter unless you're a
caligrapher imo.












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