Stroke Order - there's a wrong way to write Chinese characters

[@olli35pgxpg5naf9]

I love how you use 鬱 as an example throughout the entire video (for people who dont speak Japanese, it means depression or gloom)

[@VenomBurger]

It's also the highest stroke Kanji from standard lists, so I think it was his most extreme example.

[@dirtycas]

Olli35 Pgxpg5naf well now i know why OAO

[@craftourartout]

@@VenomBurger Not the highest stroke for Chinese words though..... Try 龘 (48 strokes). There are some with even more strokes, but they are archaic and not used nowadays.

[@robertoalfonso4120]

Wingsofthe Icephoenix but still beautiful to watch, like: たいと with 84 strokes: it means: the sighting of a flying dragon

[@jesseblaikie1888]

憂鬱な

[@jatarokemuri4549]

as a chinese, I never think about how I order my strokes. it just flows naturally. I think that stroke order is something that is a lot less important that what the tell you when you are a beginner. once you start writing sentences or even essays, I just write what is the least awkward for me, a no one knows. hell, even I might get some of the stroke orders wrong and within the many essays I have written, no teacher or grader knows nor cares. And when you start writing less neatly, you start to combine strokes for speed. Using the 口 example again, it is supposed to be 3 strokes, but when I need to finish an essay quick, I would condense that into 1 stroke, albeit in the same order. It's like writing a 12, but the leftmost points of the 2 and the bottom most point of the 1 are combined. What I'm trying to say is, once you passed the beginner phase and start writing compositions, stroke order matters less (at least in Chinese). Just make sure that what you write is eligible, and you are writing what you want to write.

[@vicentefonseca9868]

i've also noticed (and people who have learned both languages can confirm) that Chinese stroke order is much more logical and regular than Japanese stroke order

[@leozack2]

Yep. Even my teachers started to stop caring past the beginner phase and now no one cares about stroke order at all (experience from Chinese)

[@hanziwithdakang3902]

I totally agree with this. Stroke order is just a way of making our Chinese characters more pleasant to our eyes. There is no wrong way of writing characters, but there are ways of writing them so they end up looking clumsy and weird.

[@andredingstertsao]

Maybe I’m the older one here but I do remember distinctively practicing the stroke order in primary school. And the fact is the order does help one to “build up” the character. In other words, it helps to construct and make the character more distinguishable. Most people probably don’t realise this until they make a mistake. For example the character 曰 and 日 would look exactly the same if one does not pay attention.

[@aliveyetundead]

What people don’t realize is: the Latin alphabet also has stroke orders, aesthetic rules and shit. But we learn, and I’m sure Chinese and Japanese people also does, with such naturally that we don’t even thing about it.

[@koolkdny]

Every time I write a square, I never fail to accidentally use stroke order. Every. Single. Time.

[@flyingspacebrainedidiot]

That's me everytime I draw a box

[@hadhamalnam]

@Johnston Steiner i think he he means drawing a square

[@BliTzeDGames]

@Johnston Steiner yikes

[@Cryseris]

Same

[@jefferygoldmann2643]

Left side then top over right then bottom

[@kumatoni5245]

It's worth noting how many Japanese people openly admit to not writing with the correct stroke order in their daily lives. It's not all of them, but I've met plenty.

[@GyacoYu]

Basically the philosophy of Chinese stroke order is: if you can make sure no one can tell you're applying a wrong stroke order, then your "wrong order" is correct and will be accepted by others. If you cannot, simply shut up and learn the common one applied my most students until you acquire the ability described above.

[@giannisniper96]

@@GyacoYu nailed it

[@requemao]

Of course many Japanese write kanji with wrong stroke order. Then again, many English speakers mix up your and you're.

[@WatermelonEnthusiast9]

Ive heard that Korean people dont write in Hanguul stroke order as well

[@andychang_]

@@WatermelonEnthusiast9 thats me lol but tbh i dont think it matters anymore as long as you can write the letters correctly. In fact i believe that “standard” hangul stroke order is kind of ineffective, ill rather write in a method im comfortable with and works better & faster 🤷🏻

[@theale8821]

*How to never worry about stroke order in any kanji ever:* *Use a keyboard.*

[@SinisterTea]

Except that in Japan, many, many things still require a physical, handwritten paper copy.

[@Deh9o11en8or]

in which case you'll still be understood if you get the stroke order wrong. it's not like you can tell stroke order or direction if you write with a pen

[@AnimilesYT]

direction, yes. Order, also yes. Though, the order is less noticable. But then again, why would they analyze the stroke order afterwards..

[@CraftQueenJr]

So how would that work?

[@SunnySzetoSz2000]

@@larho9031Chinese had the systems for computer input.

[@emily_cjw]

You just brought me back to when I was 4 years old, learning how to write 口, 手, 田, 木, and目 in kindergarten and my teacher will pick out the smallest mistakes I make in the order of the strokes. "That one line is too straight. And those lines should be written in one stroke. I can tell when you're just drawing a square rather than writing 口"

[@emily_cjw]

A tip fron my teacher when i was first learning to write : For 口, you screw in the hinges of the door ( first line) before attaching it (second line) . Then you close the door with the bottom line. If something wants to go in (like 目, 回, 田, 日 ect) , do so before you close the door

[@rahuldhargalkar]

@@emily_cjw that's a cool mnemonic

[@zygote9529]

yep any Chinese or Japanese guy who encountered this like me

[@zygote9529]

真他馬的煩

[@welike4278]

@@zygote9529 But it helps you now.

[@andrewparke1764]

亠 is 'lid', 冖 is 'cover', and 宀 is 'roof'. They are three separate radicals.

[@zeiitgeist]

although his comment about 写 is justifiable since the traditional script looks like this -> 寫

[@andrewparke1764]

zeiitgeist True, but I was operating under the assumption that the Kanji learner wasn't familiar with traditional forms. Also, 冩 is a traditional variant of 寫, which is probably why 写 doesn't have 宀.

[@Mateau35]

Actually, 宀 means house (at least in Mandarin) and 冖 means "(wa shaped) crown" (at least in Japanese.)

[@andrewparke1764]

GilMPL According to the authoritative KangXi Dictionary, 亠 means 闕, 冖 means 覆, and 宀 means 交覆深屋.

[@Mateau35]

SilentBudgie We're talking about Radicals. They are often elementary components that are used with the construction of characters. They are not words nor are they entirely distinct characters on their own (examples for radicals that are also distinct characters: 木(tree)、手(hand)、石(stone))

[@KarlXiao18]

In China, we emphasize the importance of stroke order only in the first 1 - 2 years in primary school education, and people often ignore it afterwards. In reality, this is not a big deal in daily life nowadays as long as you don't miss any strokes or put them at wrong position or, in some cases, make the length or angle of strokes incorrect. HOWEVER, this is only OK when you are writing Chinese characters in regular script. Strokes in regular script are straight and (mostly) not connecting one to the other, and even in those complex strokes (the ones that involve turns) parts that connected by turns are still straight or a single curve at most. It doesn't really matter if you write down the strokes in a wrong order under this circumstance, because you can only put the stroke down one by one separately. In (BIG) contrast, stroke order is critical when you trying to write Chinese characters in semi-cursive or cursive script. In this two scripts, the strokes that were separated in regular script are now connecting to each other, which means one stroke in semi-cursive or cursive (especially this one) script represents several strokes in regular script. The mistake you made in stroke order when you write in regular script will now make you connect the strokes together either in the wrong way or wrong order or, in some extreme case, wrong orientation. This will make the entire character looks messy, weird, or unrecognizable, especially considering we were using ink brush instead of pen or pencil in old days. To sum up, stroke order use to be very important for writing Chinese characters correctly and neatly, but this importance has been fade out in modern days unless you are doing calligraphy.

[@HidekiShinichi]

I really wonders why china keeps their writing system, whole thing is huge and could be simplified, look at korean writing system, they use to use chinese characters, or even a tolkins fantasy fake elvish writing system Tengwar, I wished we would use it in europe because its so much easier... I could learn how to write in it in 3 days, and purerly because I dont use it I forgot it, but before I was able to read cyrylica (russian writing system, the one native to slavic languages and I am polish) it took me few months. People really likes to complicate things, chinese writing system is a good example and I just dont understeand.

[@christianrupp4006]

@@HidekiShinichi The problem is, if you change the writing system NOW, all the new students who won't learn the characters won't be able to read everything that has been written up to this point, which was not that big of a problem when Korean changed its writing system, because there weren't that many scriptures anyways unlike today in the modern era

[@yuwan]

Hideki Shinichi If everything gets simplified for foreigners, then where is cultural diversity? I would never think about why don’t the English speaking people simplify their language but just learn their rules. Mental laziness is a bad thing for diversity.

[@HidekiShinichi]

@@christianrupp4006 thats why its not viable to change it overnight. It would need to be slowly introduced into a schooling systems alongside with todays writing system replaving it withing 2-3 generations.

[@HidekiShinichi]

Yu Wan Yu Wan why you assume I was speaking to do anything "for foreigners"? No I was not. I was speaking about making it simpler for native people. If you have few thousand symbols to remember before you can write and read properly it takes longer before you can aquire actual knowledge and go forward with your education making it simply hard for people there. Simplifying it would mean its easier for natives, I dont care about foreigners in any country. Also whats soo good in a cultural diversity to be concerned about it in first place? I dont care about it eighter way, trying to preserve it in spite of people is stupid because it puts some arbitrary rules and customs over people' life and ita quality, I will never support that, and if preserving that cultural diversity is in line with people quality of life then it can be done on a basis of doing good for people, not basis of cultural diversity. and you would never thinking about simplyfying english while I would. First its not my native language anyway, but its created out of chaos and confusion making it hard to learn to english children, simplyfying and standsrdising english would go looong way. Same with my native language which is polish. Ir have tooooons of weird arbitrary rules or leftovers from its past that makes it a hard language to learn, arguably harder than chinese if we ignore a writing system issues, it could be easily fixed and simpkyfied without loosing mush or anything. Heck I am huge (and probably only) proponent of changing polish scripture to Feanor's Tengwar which if fictional writing system from Tolkien universe but fits polish language so good and well solving so many issues and is extremally simple to a point where adults can learn it in 3-4 days and with few weeks of practice gets to reading and writing speed they were at with latin alphabet.... Languages are fluid and flexible, they are changing and constantly evolving, we should envourage and celebrate it not impede and mark every change to it as incorrect, error and negative. If we would do that earlier then we would speak languages that are vastly different from what we speak now, chinese, english and polish and all languages 5-6 hundred years ago were so different that none of us would be able to speak with people back then without esentialy need to relearn half of the language from scratch

[@Eliza513E]

Stroke order 1: Have a real life stroke 2: You Win

[@hannaosterlund5974]

Underrated comment

[@partygoersonlevelfun4485]

Yes

[@theresa.y5221]

AYOOOOOOO

[@罗天豪-o1w]

Suddenly I realize how simple English is.

[@yareyare_dechi]

lol i wouldnt say english is simple, given how messed up spelling vs sounds is. though, thorough , thought through all sound different. plus compared to hanzi/kanj,i english is a much less efficient writing system. takes wayy more space/letters to convey meaning

[@josephquinto5812]

Yare Yare French has harder spelling than English, many silent letters. I learned English when I was 12, it took me a year and a half to feel fluent.

[@Mercure250]

Not sure which one is more difficult between French and English honestly...

[@kalvincastro9042]

Chinese: Here, memorize these 3,000 characters and write them down correctly. Go ahead and learn more characters if you want! Congratulations! You know how to write Chinese! English: Memorize these 26 letter sounds, their combination letters (sh/ch, ect) and how to spell, combing letters to make words. Sometimes there are silent letters, sometimes a word looks this way but it's pronounced completely differently. Try not to forget about the contractions either. French: Alright, so you know English, this should be a cinch! We have a handful of accent marks on letters, please use them accordingly. You see this word? Yeah, well just ignore the S at the end-Oh! Not that one, there are exceptions, some of them don't follow a rule, you just have to know which ones. Similarly with consonants at the end of words. A lot more stuff gets contracted in French, try to remember which ones and when. Did we mention genders are a thing?

[@冬-01]

罗天豪 This is another reason why English is one of the most spoken languages on Earth

[@mapotofu1841]

Being brought up in a Chinese household, I always draw boxes in stroke order.

[@rahuldhargalkar]

I think I subconsciously draw boxes the same way as I'm not even Chinese! 😅

[@ValkyRiver]

I always draw small boxes with one stroke. (Maybe more strokes for bigger boxes)

[@neileung]

same, im not even chinese

[@PC_Simo]

@@ValkyRiver Same. Starting from the top-left point, and working my way clockwise around the perimeter. 𑀩

[@Mrpastry909]

You wrote 田 wrong. The center horizontal stroke comes before the vertical. 3:30 ok, never mind.

[@BicyclesMayUseFullLane]

Ah yes, the joy of having to deal with different and often mutually exclusive stroke order standardisations.

[@aloysiusdevadanderabercrombie8]

I had the same thought process. I wrote it out in the air a few times to make sure and I thought “damn, have I been writing this wrong the whole time?”

[@kkuralina]

When ur chinese and is learning japanese 😭

[@sleepy4922]

Ya but in the end along as you can write the word correctly (not counting the stroke) your good I the end cuz we don’t care it along we understand what are you writing

[@imacg5]

Guess the ancient Japanese made the same mistake as Josh when they learned to write kanji.

[@fanaticaH]

I remembered a Japan only Ace Attorney puzzle that had the titular character Naruhodou Ryuchi (Phoenix Wright) being a suspect for the murder of a grammar teacher because she wrote a posthumous message in her own blood, she apparently tried to spell the killer's name but died before writing the whole name, only writing the first Kanji (he was suspected because he was the only person who was close enough/talked to her just hours before she died that had a name starting with that kanji) But he proves that she, as the grammar teacher she was, even when she was dying, writing a message with her own blood, she respected the order for writing Kanji. So the thing that looked like the Kanji for "Na" was actually the start of a very different Kanji, spelling someone else's name.

[@AltName7]

Holy hell, I can't even begin to imagine how you would go about conveying that as the solution.

[@NeonBornSpartan]

CoolStoryBob

[@AmSeris]

fuck. stroke order can possibly save my life

[@tj12711]

Jesus, imagine trying to localize that shit to English

[@AliceIsSleepy]

tj22 The P is actually an unfinished B.

[@dan339dan]

I nearly complained about the "wrong" order you had on 田

[@onisuryaman408]

Same here. Feel triggered. Until I watched till the end

[@DrWhom]

nearly

[@user-hs8uw4hn3n]

I'm learning japanese so I learned to write it just like in the video

[@eier5472]

Me learning Chinese: man, so many characters, I want to read earlier, lets learn Japanese Japanese: man, three different writing system, too complicated, lets learn Korean *Korean Grammar has entered the chat*

[@AeroCraftAviation]

😂😂😂😂 Underrated comment here.

[@cookiebird6630]

As someone who is learning Korean, this is relatable

[@chinpokomon_]

Isn't Korean grammar basically the same as Japanese?

[@eier5472]

@@chinpokomon_ AFAIK it's much more irregular

[@n_asmo]

Yea my first language is korean (but i speak english) and as ik, japanese is a wee bit more harder for english speakers to learn cus of the three writing systems including kanji and the grammar. But the grammar of the korean language definitely is very irregular and u have to use the language like every single day in order to get used to all of those irregular stuff and become fluent. The korean language is just as hard as learning arabic.

[@Shenzhou.]

If you follow the correct stroke order, you will get a very pretty looking character. Otherwise the character may look weird or could be mistaken for another character. For example, a poorly written 台 may start to resemble 合.

[@inakilbss]

For me, the easiest way to make two strokes touch the right way is like what you would do for a capital T: straight first, then side path starting from the first stroke. Following that logic, my way of writing 台 would be to do the top clockwise, then the bottom clockwise and the final stroke as-is. Stroke order is taught for the sake of cursive scripts, dictionary lookup and memorization, not legibility in regular script.

[@GyacoYu]

If you think stroke order doesn't matter at all, just take a look how many different scripts has evolved from Gupta script. Basically the philosophy of Chinese stroke order is: if you can make sure no one can tell you're applying a wrong stroke order, then your "wrong order" is correct and will be accepted by others. If you cannot, simply shut up and learn the common one applied my most students until you acquire the ability described above.

[@HawkinaBox]

Shiiiit...

[@Shenzhou.]

@@Weaver_Games Why mock our writing system as s**t just because it is ancient? Chinese characters constitute the oldest "continuously" used system of writing in the world, having been used since 1200 BCE so why abandon our ancient system just because you don't like it? Source: _Chinese characters_ wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters

[@PhysicsGamer]

@@Shenzhou. ...Not liking a thing is a perfectly sufficient reason to not want to do a thing. Sometimes you have to do that thing anyway, but in that case people do tend to complain about it.

[@Mbwunion]

Stroke order is a life-saver. After it becomes intuitive, it is so much easier to remember new characters and you immediately know how to write write it despite never having seen it written by someone else.

[@sl0523]

The basically rules of a correct stroke order are: 1. From left to right, when writing vertical strokes; 2. From top to bottom, when writing horizontal strokes; 3. Interior prior to exterior, when there's no full closure; 4. Left side first, then the right side; 5. Upside first, then the bottom part; 6. Vertical prior to horizontal; 7. Closure comes last.

[@chri-k]

@@sl0523 you got your verticals and horizontals mixed up

[@HingYok]

Experience of a native Chinese speaker: We basically learned writing these characters through drilling - In elementary school, when learning new characters, our teachers would introduce their radicals and pronunciations, and then have us raise our hands and write the character in the air with our fingers. While doing so, my first-grade teacher would have us repeat the name of each stroke, while my other teachers would have us count the number of strokes. As homework, we had to write the characters and their pronunciations over and over again (3 to 20 times, depending on the teachers) as well as some words from the textbook or common words containing the character several times, in addition to exercise books for Chinese language art (國語課 in Taiwan). And whether your writing is neat or not is also very important in terms of grades. The more upright and neat your writing, the higher grade you get (the highest would usually be 甲上 or even 甲上 with stars; these are equivalents to A+). On the other hand, if the writing is messy, you would still get a 甲下 (A-) even if you have all the strokes right.

[@TheRedOGRE]

Im learning Japanese right now. My english writing is super messy. I broke my right arm as a kid, and was forced to write with my left hand while learning to write. I've always had messy writing. Really trying to improve that with my japanese writing since it's much more intricate. I've been writing the same words over and over and following stroke order. My Japanese writing looks way neater then my english writing at least. So I think im improving. I wish I never started writing with my left hand though. It's just a pain in the ass.

[@Sodapop1317]

left to right, top to bottom.

[@Marcotonio]

Insides after: that depends! 週 is a nice example where the 土口 come after the square, but the outermost part is drawn last!

[@Yadobler]

well, you could think that the 辶 comes "below" the 周 like 周 is pushed down into 辶 making 週 I guess it is kind of like a huge container（周） ONTOP of the lorry (辶) so by stroke order the 辶 comes last since it's below? but to be honest sometimes i cheat and just write 辶 first, same for 这，还 and so on

[@Marcotonio]

Yeah, it makes sense. I for one have learned the stroke order, but will oftentimes ignore it in favor of style; and since most of the time I'm just practicing for memorization's sake, I will write a quick CCW circle instead of writing a 3-strokes square, for instance.

[@elmohead]

Draw the square first, but put everything inside it before you close it.

[@Woolong-ql1jh]

This

[@Artorus]

I was almost going to say with umbrage: "That's the wrong order for writing 'paddy field'!" Till I got schooled that Chinese and Japanese had different stroke order. You, sir, are a linguistic god.

[@MrHsuLaoshi]

Same here! Interesting how stroke order is different while the characters are the same.

[@saltyman7888]

thank god this guy doesn't make as many mistakes and faux pas as xidnaf

[@alanashee3860]

Me too. I didn't know about the stroke order difference. Interesting.

[@TheLukeStein]

Haha. I thought that as well. It is titled "Stroke order.... Chinese characters" though. I expected that as the default characters.

[@jeffwei]

same

[@HikariLicht]

I don't read or write Japanese, so this may be the noobiest piece of trivia, but I love that the word for a female ninja 'kunoichi' (くノ一) is written using the strokes from the kanji for woman 'onna' (女) in the correct stroke order.

[@PureZOOKS]

I mean thats true, but that is three different systems there. Hiragana く Katakana ノ Kanji 一

[@NetherTaker]

Looks like Hiragana Ku and Katakana No with Kanji Ichi.

[@leah-marie1241]

@@NetherTaker くのいち in hiragana, クノイチ in katakana but idk the kanji it would use I think it depends on the context

[@raisha99]

OMG I always talk about this even tho I hate wrtiring this kanji cause it's hard to get the right shape but I really love the stroke order

[@HelgeMoulding]

As far as I can tell, the "ku-no-ichi" meaning "female ninja" is a thing from modern manga, and not any kind of historical thing. The reason for this would be a) the character for onna (woman) 女 wasn't written so it could be seen as "ku-no-ichi" back when. For another, there are no references to female ninja as "ku-no-ichi" from back then. The closest is apparently the term "ku-no-ichi no jutsu" which *could* mean "method of using a woman" to refer to having a woman seduce someone.

[@fiilisboa]

I had a japanese teacher who is a real japanese citizen who said she was able to tell if you wrote the kanji correctly just by looking at the pressure points of your pencil or pen in the paper sheet. After class we would make little mistakes, which to us seemed unrecognizable, just to test her ability and it was crazy... she always found the order of writing. Kanji writers are artists.

[@menonalevi6984]

I don't know why you have to point out that your teacher was a ''real japanese citizen''? Where are the fake ones?

[@PC_Simo]

@@menonalevi6984 In Room 39, in North Korea, training to become spies. 😅🇰🇵

[@hoi-polloi1863]

I had a similar experience with the professor of my intro to Chinese class. We'd write our characters on the blackboard while he had his back turned, then he'd turn around and announce who had done things in the wrong order or direction. I asked him about it later, and he said he looked for the little splash of chalk dust you get when you put the chalk against the board!

[@user-gu9yq5sj7c]

@@menonalevi6984 The OP was just saying his/her teacher was from Japan.

[@dacueba-games]

I think you mistook an R for a U.

[@araen11]

You are overexaggeraring.. The stroke orders actually HELP you memorise the symbols when you get used to them. After about 100 hundred characters, you start to f e e l the Kanji and how is it supposed to be written. And by the way, unless you are in an exam situation, no one will care how you write these, whether you make one stroke wrong order etc. Although it is better to write them properly- again the stroke orders are really helpful, at least to me.

[@rpgluvr1358]

He's not overexaggerating. He's right. Kanji can contradict itself.

[@spiceandrice4838]

I agree, I always make sure to learn the stroke order when learning a new character and after it is a lot easier to right it and it looks much neater.

[@raymondsnailing1352]

I haven't gotten to writing Kanji yet, but writing the Hiragana characters (for me) is so much easier when you know the proper stroke order!

[@AlvinYap510]

Well, i feel that not following the stroke order often makes your handwriting ugly. I am a Mandarin speaker though

[@raisha99]

I feel the same

[@songtraveler]

When I began my Chinese language odyssey many years ago, we were first taught the principles of left to right, top to bottom, outside/inside, bottom closure, then continued to refine the rules until we could write any character with assurance. Once you have learned the correct stroke order, you can tell if a character has been written incorrectly. It just looks weird. Also, knowing the order of the strokes helps in reading cursive writing because you can see where the character begins and ends and follow the sequence in between. It is also essential to be able to count the strokes when searching for a character in a dictionary, because characters are first ordered by radical, and then stroke count, and some of the radicals have hundreds of characters. But in the end, Chinese characters are fascinating and an exquisite art form.

[@Mattropolis97]

I'm learning Chinese and Japanese in school. I prefer the Chinese stroke order of 田 because it's slightly faster

[@ichirocharles1]

I agree.

[@bringbackthedislikecount6767]

@@timl. As a Chinese myself I don't really care about the order as well since it doesn't affects the character anyways

[@D.Wapher]

Right stroke order does help the character's proportion. For example "變", when I start to write these kinds of characters it always feels the upper part is hard to look nice and often unbalanced, after I check the dictionary and try the right order(Chinese), it won't really impact readability but it sure is easier to get a good look. Btw I'm Taiwanese, mother language is Traditional Chinese, following the Chinese stoke order is easier to write Chinese characters imo.

[@-sorrymasendeshita-3039]

Lol it takes the same amount of time, and it’s probably faster if you know the language meaning that ur just used to writing it that way. ( sry if my English ant spot-on)

[@IshayuG]

Indeed. It also makes way more sense when you consider 里, as pointed out in the video. It stays the same

[@NativLang]

At first this almost knocked me out. Then I learned it's really reasonable. With odd exceptions.

[@markusoreos.233]

Why did you choose the baku as the monster?I'ts because it eats dreams....

[@christosvoskresye]

You didn't really explain WHY stroke order is important, though. I would have thought that it made a real difference for someone writing with a brush rather than a ball-point pen or had some other identifiable effect on the product. You appear to be saying that it does not. Alternatively, maybe it consists of completing one component at a time in a way that sets down the root of each character and then adds the branches. That also appears not to be the case. Is there a reason, or just a convention?

[@ebigunso]

Hello! I am Japanese, but I write 田 with 一 for the third stroke. So does that make me wrong? :S Oh and btw I think most Japanese ppl can't write 鬱 on paper really... It's one of the hardest stuff to write along side 醤.

[@xjack9955x]

+ebigunso being a weab doesn't make you Japanese

[@ebigunso]

xjack9955x (´・ω・｀)　twitter.com/ebigunso

[@MisterDoctorBaconman]

A cameo from one of my favorite characters? I experienced a 灪 of emotions when I saw that beautiful and 鬱 character.

[@D.Wapher]

Writing the character sometimes really gives you the feeling amirite.

[@blankblank1284]

Translation please. Both English and Romanization.

[@blankblank1284]

@Sungindra Setiawan Arigato Gozaimasu (Dont have Kana keyboard on my phone.) Do have Hangul though. 여보세요!

[@cochan7347]

@Sungindra Setiawan 灪 means flood, or sea - imagine waves shining under the sky and no land could be seen - that's it

[@Jamb13]

I never had any problems with stroke order personally, 99% of them are predictable when you know the basic rules

[@efphy6219]

JEAM ジーム yeah, even if you haven't see the radicals of the kanji before (my english is shit sorry lol)

[@NatWarrior1]

I was never taught the specific rules but they all have a pattern to them and it actually looks better with stroke order

[@dedeshikaalabi-mensah9471]

Yeah I never thought it was hard either you just need to memorize it and not really think about it and you’ll be fine.

[@user-kx1ck2kp7j]

Yep

[@ravenchrisma3632]

Completely agrees

[@DTux5249]

字 looked proud to beat a man who had no chance

[@casperdewith]

3:07 Oh 歌, you are a beautiful melody, but you are a nasty character. Carefully crafted piece of poetry. Beautiful.

[@npc6817]

someone should translate this in kanji

[@アヤミ]

歌者，其旋使優，其字使憂也。

[@theTHwa3tes11]

@@npc6817 it means song in Chinese and Japanese.

[@theTHwa3tes11]

歌 (uta) 歌 (ka)

[@diobrando9904]

That cursive Kanji is ridiculous. My jaw almost dropped to the floor when I saw it.

[@diobrando9904]

Beautiful, yet scary. I'm sure the Japanese have a word for that.

[@appleoxide4489]

No one expects you to be able to read the cursive, It's difficult to read on purpose.

[@OngoingDiscovery]

have u ever seen cursive Cyrillic? Its somehow even worse

[@Fearofthemonster]

I hate every cursive writing(even my native language's which uses latin alphabet). Learning it in school ruined my hand writing and now I write like shit.

[@michaeltsui3435]

Problem is you are expected to write Cyrillic cursive, while Latin alphabet users can stick to the printed types. Not to mention that a lot of the characters look virtually the same.

[@gwenc7805]

To be honest, I grew up using Chinese as my first language, and I still mess the strokes up all the time The thing is tho, if you write super straight and clean strokes, most people can't tell that you messed up the order. Only when you write fast and connect different strokes will people notice. This is why calligraphy needs to be based on the understanding of correct stroke order.

[@nuklearboysymbiote]

Born and raised in Hong Kong. Fact: no one cares about stroke order as long as you generally have horizontal strokes left to right, and vertical/diagonal strokes top to bottom lmao. I can never remember how to write 進 in the "correct order" Also please stop confusing japanese and chinese. japanese ”kanji” characters is literally taken from original chinese characters.

[@thorj157]

So true

[@itsuki_jeff]

It should be 丿丨(亻), then 亠丨一一一(隹), Finally 辶

[@jameswang999]

木原樹 wait I though you write the 亠plus一一 then 丨and then the final －

[@hanziwithdakang3902]

OMG, so true for me too. Especially this character 這。 哈哈！

[@nuklearboysymbiote]

@@hanziwithdakang3902 i write the 辷 first and then the 言 LOL

[@MrTabasham1990]

"There is a right way and a wrong way" This pretty much sums up living in East Asia

[@imacg5]

There is a right way, and there are the wrong ways.

[@lonestarr1490]

Rule No. 1: Be of East Asian origin. You ain't? Wrong way!

[@SammaelGwyn]

You could have saved yourself a lot of frustration by following one simple rule... top to bottom, left to right, that's what my Taiwanese Mandarin teacher taught me.

[@Mrpastry909]

臺灣囯語嗎？你去過臺灣嗎？

[@raisha99]

Not actually that simple but generally yeah ig

[@xkjyeah]

except 囯 (outside in) 運 (inside out)

[@DrWhom]

and only close after you are done

[@-sorrymasendeshita-3039]

Sam Cowden same!!! But my Japanese teacher said that smae rule

[@peeweeallen517]

As my mom says, don’t close the box yet if there’s still something you need to put in it.

[@michelleli1415]

I think it's mainly about consistency and habit. Writing a Chinese character in the incorrect format is akin to writing the letter "w" from right to left, instead of left to right as we usually do it. Or if we write the little tail in a capital "Q" before we inscribe the circle. It's the same concept, only more complex with the eloquent Chinese characters.

[@Powerracer251]

Except it really isn't. In english almost everybody has their own quarks in writing. There are people who write in exactly the way you describe and it is not an issue.

[@bennimusnetzer3618]

Cyrillic doesn't have a strict stroke order either. For instance, the cursive form of Дд looks like Dg, and I've seen people write it in all different kinds of ways (I used to write it like Δ). When I write a print Ц, I write the L shape first (with the tail) and then the right side. When I write it in cursive, I write it like a U with a looped tail. In Hanzi, stroke order really only matters when you're writing in cursive. If you write 口 like a circle, it looks different from the "correct" way, which looks like the number 12. Also the character 女, in which you write the left downward stroke, then the right, then the horizontal line in that order. If you mess it up, it may get confused for 又, 文 or 夂. I personally like strict stroke order because it helps me remember some complicated characters like biang (which for some reason I decided to learn. Also no unicode character)

[@madeabdel3736]

Michelle Li uP

[@GyacoYu]

Powerracer251 If you think stroke order doesn't matter at all, just take a look how many different scripts has evolved from Gupta script. Basically the philosophy of Chinese stroke order is: if you can make sure no one can tell you're applying a wrong stroke order, then your "wrong order" is correct and will be accepted by others. If you cannot, simply shut up and learn the common one applied my most students until you acquire the ability described above.

[@JasmineJu]

In some Chinese textbooks 田 is written with the inner horizontal stroke first because it's essentially a 十 inside a 口.

[@MDzaki-uk2ll]

2:42 the kanji for "depression" is really depressing to look at

[@bisexualbean2529]

Dzaki Honestly though

[@youknowwho8925]

It's designed to be

[@Doublefish0319]

In simplified Chinese it's a lot easier lol Japanese: 鬱 Simplified Chinese: 郁

[@youknowwho8925]

@@Doublefish0319 I know but I think no one in Japan will use the kanji if you can just write うつ

[@Doublefish0319]

@@youknowwho8925 Yeah I agree. I don't know Japanese a lot and I donno how they like to write, but I do feel pity for Taiwanese and HKners who have to write that complicated shit🤣

[@PocketJapan]

To people who still don't get why stroke order matters. Here's a brief list of reasons. 1) when writing fast (cursive) or reading cursive letters, like shown at the end of the video, the characters melt together in a very particular way. Only this way is the correct way, because if you write fast with different strokes, the blurred character will look completely different. 2) when you encounter a symbol you don't know (say: 思, you need to know how to divide it into its 'radicals' (building blocks), such as 心 and 田, if you don't know the stroke order, you don't know the building blocks and how they're written, you don't know how to look up the symbol in a dictionary (there is no alphabetical dictionary, you start with looking up a building block --> count the total number of strokes --> look for your particular character in the list) 3) there are millions of homophones in Japanese, if you were to remove kanji from the language (kanji carry a meaning, such as 'swimming', 'man', 'fire'), Y O U D G E T S O M E T H I N G L I K E T H I S A N D T H I S I S Q U I T E H A R D I S I T N O T. All of the homophones would make the language impossible to read (e.g.: "shouka" pronounciation: 消化 (digestion) 昇華 (sublimation) 消火 (firefighting) 商家 (mercantile house) 頌歌 (hymn of praise, anthem, and I could go on for days. They're all pronounced with exactly the same sound, so a phonetic script such as hiragana/western letters would be incomprehensible. To illustrate, 1600+ characters have the sound 'shou', 10,000+ characters have the sound 'i' etc

[@meowzzar9583]

i have an idea! for number 3! what if... we remove the kanji... AND... put spaces between each word? like in english! よい かんがえ、ね? but i suppose that doesn't quite solve the millions of homophones mess. x3

[@atheistsquid]

Early video games literally were all in hiragana with added spaces between words and they were very easy to read. There is a reason that all languages with alphabets use spaces between words and languages with characters that contain meaning don't find spaces necessary.

[@princessmaly]

What the hell does any of this have to do with stroke order? "But what about cursive?" UUuuhhhh... what about NOT cursive? Did it ever one cross your mind that NOT cursive writing exists? Like... seriously, wtf? OUTSIDE of calligraphy, stroke order is LITERALLY indistinguishable once it's written. Certainly if you've written the character the wrong way, then that's an issue, but that's called MISPELLING a word, not "stroke order." Having good form and being fancy about things is always nice, and it's actually beneficial to learning kanji with multiple recurring elements as the complicated messes make more sense in your head as you learn them. But, if you're just some fucking guy writing down notes in their notebook? Literally who the fuck cares? What fucking difference does it make? To anyhow? Who the hell would even KNOW? They would have to be standing over your shoulder and watching you write to know this. Seriously, fucking weebs need to chill with this shit. Learning stroke order is important, but not important to the mutual intelligibility of handwriting, unless you are painting proverbs on an ancient parchment next to some old timey fucking trees. Get over yourselves.

[@christianjorgensen4621]

So true.

[@RLP92]

Thank you i was looking for a comment to explain this

[@djmaxxl]

When practicing I ditch the idea of stroke order. It would only be relevant if I am writing in front of an easily offendable Japanese person, and even then I can just smile politely and apologize. Other styles may become more difficult to write, but since most writing is done nowadays on computers, that is just a minor hindrance. I prefer to see language from a pragmatic point of view. If I managed to receive and/or convey information in a language, then that is sufficient.

[@yadiggg6604]

I read that it is easier to remember if you learn the stroke order, but then again, you do have a valid point in the fact that everything is on computers nowadays. I certainly wouldn't be offended if I saw a foreigner writing the alphabet we use in the wrong way because it doesn't matter to me. Although there is a certain way to write each letter, I wouldn't mind.

[@WolfWalrus]

The history of "stroke order matters" is pretty simple and interesting. It was necessitated by the medium in which Chinese was written, with ink and brush. If you moved your hand over a part you'd already written, you could smudge it, or drip ink. It was to minimise pen travel outside of writing the strokes. It would be really interesting to see an episode dedicated to how the medium in which something is written changes how the script looks (e.g. Cuneiform with styli on clay tablets, runes made with chisels in wood, goosefeather quills changing the width of strokes in old European scripts)

[@katya_fhs]

Ha, I'm learning Mandarin, and it made me uncomfortable when you wrote the vertical stroke in 田 as the third stroke, until you explained in Japanese that's the right order. 😅 Personally, of all the things you have to learn from Chinese, I find handwriting practice the most relaxing. I like how, little by little, the more characters you learn to write, the more intuitive the stroke order seems. I'm not stressing myself out with handwriting, though, because I need Chinese mostly to communicate with colleagues overseas, and well, once I learn communication will be mostly through email and videoconference. Still, I'm keeping a diary in Chinese to create the habit of writing at least a few sentences every day.

[@deacudaniel1635]

As a Mandarin learner, I find handwriting the hardest because I always forget how to write the characters.

[@OVXX666]

我也看到！！ i cringed so hard

[@luyofan4884]

The same feeling! Almost doubt myself if I have the wrong stroke order all the time..

[@IR-xy3ij]

Most Chinese characters are compound characters built up from simpler components, so the more you already know, the less you need to know on top of that to learn more characters

[@FirefoxisredExplorerisblueGoog]

I think you're insane. But I admire that.

[@Haaklong]

I like your name.

[@weldin]

I like safari. Is that okay?

[@markusoreos.233]

+Cinestar Productions It is if you're kenyan

[@weldin]

Nintendo Replays *rimshot*

[@jayknowles2146]

Firefox is red Explorer is blue Google+'s bad Chrome is too

[@marys.9367]

Lemme tell you, stroke order sucks the most for lefties. Any character with a down- and leftward stroke feels like such beautiful relief.

[@Meadow0Muffin]

Stroke order is important, mostly because it helps one learn the characters and also for deciphering cursive script. I think a lot of it has to do with how a brush behaves when inscribing characters. Most of the stroke order seems to be dictated by alternating horizontal and vertical lines, so that the strokes created are thin enough to read.

[@kiro9291]

as a Chinese person I'm laughing my ass off right now

[@cecikins]

why?

[@kiro9291]

cecikins the amount of anger in these three videos is hilarious to me

[@angolin9352]

that's because your writing system is horrible.

[@kiro9291]

Angolin har har har

[@Shenzhou.]

+Angolin Chinese characters may be difficult to write but it suits China's needs just fine. It's a pictorial language that unites the different dialects of China. Other countries are free to drop the language at any time. China is probably one of the few countries where other nations visit in order to learn the written language. Most of the time foreign languages are forced onto natives by conquest (e.g. English, Spanish etc)

[@methylatedlysine]

Proverb: yA cAn'T pUt sOmeThiNg iN a cOuRtyArD AfTeR yOu cLoSe tHe gAte. 田 unless its a spear 里.

[@WryAun]

I always found reading in Japanese easier than writing but it's fascinating how once you've learned the way to write even 囗 you can barely force yourself to do it any other way

[@MashMaloCircus]

As a Hongkonger which speaks Cantonese, our daily conversation is a mix of Cantonese and English, so when we text or write some small note, it's a mixture of Chinese and Latin characters. We write in pure Chinese character and English when we need to do things formally. So I never find which system is better because both systems are right in our blood. All those hate comments about all people should write in Latin characters and abandon primitive Chinese characters, those are people lack of openness, who don't understand different cultures favor on different writing methods based on their own languages, maybe they will bitch about how difficult is Arabic characters and Devanagari, bitch about where is the vowel. They don't understand the Arabic characters quite fit into Arabic itself which quite lack of vowels and Devanagari for the sandhi rules. Yes Chinese characters are hard because it's foreign to you, if you're frustrated when you're learning it, it's normal, we all have been through that, we Hongkonger even write in traditional characters everyday so take a deep breathe and carry on. If you are not planing to learn Mandarin, Cantonese or Japanese, stop bitching and get a life.

[@kitkatkatehh2400]

From Hong Kong here too :p

[@chrishui9092]

Yea 啱呀😂 學下d MK 寫火星文都好 Real heart ho ho use Really As a Hongkonger , we learn the strokes when we are small and the rules are as simple as from left to right and top to bottom, for every single character I could also write Japanese as I think it is an interesting language since they use kanji, some words you may not see the difference from Chinese character and kanji but there are E.g. Chinese:歲 漢字: 歳 same meaning(age) similar writing but not same Also 步 and 歩 (walk) There are still much to learn about Chinese characters/kanji I consider it as an art P.s. My Chinese input system on my mobile device is the stroke input system (筆劃）which uses the stroke order to type words and it's very convenient as characters has different stroke orders Btw thx for the video to let us know how foreigners think about the characters.

[@chrishui9092]

Apart from the stroke order We don't have those complicated tenses to remember

[@lmaowha]

I am hk!

[@alexfriedman2047]

I actually think the Traditional Chinese character looks the best. Basically that is the same as ancient china. They should use the same characters or none at all. The commies rule to simplify the characters is STUPID. If they gonna change it then do away with the ENTIRE character writing system. The traditional characters have more of the culture in them or something , I can't explain it... but I would rather see the full character. Also I like Cantonese much more than Mandarin. Cantonese is beautiful. Too bad only Hong Kong use it. Anyway good day to you.

[@fjcstenberg6178]

Picture the classic scene: it’s world war 2 and an American spy in Germany gets exposed due to slowing the number 3 on his hand using his thumb and first two fingers instead of his middle 3 fingers. Now imagine a Chinese spy in Japan trying to write a letter…

[@tomw7225]

I had learned to write 田 with the horizontal stroke as the third stroke, so I was really confused until you mentioned that Japan does it differently. Honestly, that barely matters. They'll notice things like that if you write in front of them, but it makes little difference in the long run. I'm glad you were fair to the character system, though. It's hard -- one can't get around that -- but it's not as insane as people make it out to be.

[@CrazedsHideout]

I learned some Japanese in college and I live here for work now and one thing that's helped me relax over the language: even Japanese people don't really get it. I mean, you didn't even get into the counters and how the words for numbers change depending on the counter, but Japanese people mess them up and switch them out all the time. And they understand each other, just that the people and books teaching English are generally grammar snobs and are trying to keep the language how it was while the younger generation is tired of not knowing how to pronounce their own language, so they're switching it up. But also, most Japanese texts come with furigana, so you don't have to remember all the kanji and their pronunciations. But if you do pick up the kanji from exposure to the word, then you're able to read texts much faster. And you REALLY don't need to learn the name kanji because they will always have furigana. But that's just for reading. Lots of foreigners don't learn to read beyond the kana. I mean, to give you context, I work with like, 10 other foreigners. 3 of them are practically fluent in Japanese, 4 at least speak better than I do, and I can read better than all of them (one is around my level, though). When I show Japanese people I can write even basic kanji, they're AMAZED. Even when I get the stroke order wrong, no one really cares as long as I get all the parts correct. And the more difficult kanji usually end up being in hiragana anyway because no one wants to deal with that mess.

[@rahuldhargalkar]

That's cool ^^

[@tikkitikkitembo148]

Seeing this video just made me thankful that I decided to learn Korean instead if Chinese or Japanese. UNTIL I remembered Hanja which is the chinese characters in Korea with Korean pronounciation.

[@rjfaber1991]

You do know that the letters of hangul also have an official stroke order, right? I don't think it's remotely as strictly adhered to in Korea as it is for hanzu/kanji in the two Chinas and Japan, but because stroke order was a thing in the world of the civil servants who invented hangul for king Sejong I, they invented an official stroke order for hangul as well.

[@abcdefg0394]

As a Chinese native I remember the way my teacher used to scold me when I got some small order wrong I HATE STROKE ORDER (but I guess it's essential?) And i never noticed how Japanese strokes differ from Chinese strokes Just keep it up...! Additional notes: Chinese traditional characters are written in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan; simplified ones are written in mainland; though some Ppl in traditional Chinese would tend to simplify some for convenience (though it's not official, but it's allowed in official exams though I won't do that) . Example: 體 (body) to 体

[@PixelBytesPixelArtist]

I love how my chinese teacher always draws squares in the chinese stroke character

[@kodfkdleepd2876]

It's not the stroke order that matters, it's how it looks, and if you use a different stroke order it will not look right. It mainly has to do with brushes. If you stroke a brush left to right it will look different than right to left because the way brushes work. Hence the stroke order is the order you can go about drawing the character so that it will look like it is suppose to and won't be confusing. The order is not fixed nor dose one necessarily have to follow it. What is important is that the character look correct at the end. If you can make it look right using some other stroke order then it will work. Printing dose not have a stroke order but can make them look right on paper. Try to write characters with a brush and you will see the difference. Even with a pen it can change the way things look but not as drastically. So stroke order really doesn't matter and really does. But it's much easier simply to memorize the order and do that then worry about trying to make it look right. If you memorize the order then you solved 50% of the problem automatically and will be right all the time. If you don't memorize the stroke order you will likely write something that doesn't look right. It's really no different than any other language except in most languages stroke order won't ruin the meaning. E.g., English cursive also has a stroke order but you are sort of forced in to it for most letters. Yes, there are people that will say you have to do it exactly the way they claim to be correct and those people are just authoritarians. What is important is that it look right and the means to do that(brush, printer, pen, etc) is irrelevant beyond that. Hence if you focus on the actual look of the character and can reproduce it through "artistic force" then the stroke order won't matter... but likely you would end up using it that way to actually get it to look correct anyways. The only difference is that there are actually sometimes many different stroke orders for a character that will work but you have to know at least one so might as well just memorize it rather than go the long route. One thing I noticed about Chinese writing is that the reason why some things are meant to be written first is they provide the visual framework to add other strokes and if you mix them up then it throws off proportions.

[@zfloyd1627]

Thank you for clearing this up. I was confused before.

[@jiazhechen]

Well, I don't think this really matters. Teachers taught us that there are tons of rules to write block characters, but actually few people fully go after the teachers instruction. In my opinion there ARE rules of thumb for you to write faster and clearer, just like how English signatures are written. But still there are lots of "anything you do should be ok" stuff and you don't have to be that rigorous to stick to the dogma of writing. For instance, the way how you write "rice field" is not exactly the same as I do, and I think both of us are fine as long as you get used to this pattern. Also, Chinese characters are mainly designed for right-handed people, but again we can still choose to write with left hands, and the stroke order will be totally different from how you do with your right hand. ALL these are viable as long as it satisfies your daily need to write fast and clear.

[@Tiananmen8964]

The stroke order in Japan, China, Taiwan, and presumably Hong Kong all differ. As a native Chinese speaker, I never care though. The reason that there are different orders are probably because of different calligraphers and schools. Just choose one that is reasonable and the easiest for you.

[@person880]

I wish you went into the history of calligraphy with brushes as the start and end points of a stroke when using a brush will be much more pronounced than when using a pen or pencil.

[@lcmiracle]

1:34 actually makes a lot of sense, you are drawing the enclosure to limit the size of the central element, but you don't want to fully enclose it before you do the center bit first because you may over draw the verticle line. Drawing the bottom line last help you depicting the character in a more visually appeasing and less ambiguous way.

[@OldsReporter]

This would probably blow your mind: 左(left) starts with 一丿; 右(right) starts with丿一. The reason lies in the origins of these two characters: although those two components look identical today, they used to be depictions of the left hand and the right hand, respectively.

[@madeabdel3736]

thank

[@VenomBurger]

The reason now is for the sake of flow. 左 is 一丿一, the 3rd stroke is the top stroke of 工. 右 is 丿一｜, the 3rd stroke is the side of 口. This rule stands true with stuff like 有 or 友 or 布, the 1st and 3rd strokes follow the same direction.

[@アヤミ]

Even in China no one writes 右 like that. It looks weird to us.

[@OldsReporter]

@@アヤミ I'm from China and my middle school arts teacher taught us that in a calligraphy lesson. The reason behind this goes all the way back to 篆书. But nowadays it's probably a fancy thing to show that they have class; while ordinary people rarely care about any stroke order whatsoever. I've even seen ordinary people write 女 starting with 一 first, or even 一 second. It's just wild. But whatever. Nobody seems to care.

[@OldsReporter]

@@アヤミ ... But for me, the reason why I write 左 and 右 differently, is not to show off, but because I always have a very hard time telling apart right from left. I kid you not: I usually need to raise my left hand (which I named "left") to tell you with 100% certainty if something is on my left hand side.

[@atanasarnaudov8253]

My Chinese teacher made it very simple for me - up to down, left to right, inside to outside. Otherwise the hanzi end up looking wrong.

[@smudgethedog1610]

I have been learning Mandarin for half a year, but hànzì(Chinese Characters) for 3. Trust me, it is hard when you start but I can now look at a character and confidently guess the order. BTW NativLang, stroke is important but during a exchange trip with Chinese students to our school and I would write a character, they would understand what I was writing regardless of stroke order.🇨🇳🇬🇧

[@Ida-xe8pg]

When you wake up in the morning and you find out that Kanji still exists

[@finallylegal2125]

As a Chinese speaker who acquired Japanese, I used to not write the character for 送, or anything with the 之 radical in the right stroke order. In grade school, I would write 之 first before whatever was inside (关), against my teacher’s instructions. Maybe it was just my rebellious side I guess, but eventually they stopped caring, because no one could notice the difference when it was finished. Fast forward a couple years when I started learning Japanese, and I had to deal with the same stroke order bs again, and eventually I relented. I practiced writing 送る(おくる) in the correct way, and eventually it affected the way I wrote 送 (sòng) in Mandarin Chinese. The real problem came when they had different stoke orders for the same word, like 田 and 必. So great. Now I have two ways of writing the same damn word. I think really, the only way I managed to come to terms with all of this is to recognise the two as completely unique, separate languages (which they are), so whenever I’m writing 汉子(hàn zi) or 漢字 (かんじ) characters, as long as I think about writing them in Japanese (or Chinese), the “correct” stroke order for the language comes naturally. To my relief, speaking however was completely different. They are worlds apart when it comes to spoken language. EDIT: spelling

[@ootka4069]

1:49 "I'm gay."

[@D.Wapher]

But this does put a smile on my face.

[@zer-atop3032]

1:48

[@thesoundvault508]

Beautiful 😂

[@TalmoTheSell]

哈哈 I heard it too

[@quatosoi5707]

"and what a gay it is"

[@chinogambino9375]

I find Japanese can read the writing even if you get the wrong stroke order, keeping the elements balanced and clean is more important. It's only a big deal if you write cursive or are using a brush because then people will see the tail of your strokes.

[@ramuk1933]

The complexity of kanji is why I love them so much. Plus, kanji, especially when written in grass script (cursive/sousho), are beautiful.

[@risannd]

characters 必 (bi) has different stroke order in Taiwan, Japan and China

[@D.Wapher]

I never notice that before, damn.

[@nwt229]

The stroke is always write with is left 点 , 乚 ， middle 点，丿， right 点 Which version is this?

[@D.Wapher]

@@nwt229 semi-Taiwanese LUL, I guess.

[@D.Wapher]

Taiwanese: left_點、乚、middle_點、right_點、丿, basically 心+丿, the origin of 必 has nothing to do with 心, so this stroke order is technically wrong but it is the standard for Taiwan so it's ok, kinda? Japanese: middle_點、丿、乚、left_點、right_點. Chinese: 丿、乚、middle_點、left_點、right_點, which is technically the right way to write the character, originate from the character 弋.

[@rocketlauncher6207]

1:48 alright i had to put subtitles, just to clarify that he said "game"

[@cjhunt9532]

I mean, it's not like they'll catch you if you do it wrong. it comes out the same.

[@julzie6954]

The character 写 has the old form which is 寫， which actually has the radical 宀 instead of 冖, so I think it is just a matter of simplification ? correct me if I'm wrong

[@漢軍-q4e]

Julian Evan You are right.😆

[@MashMaloCircus]

In fact, I found traditional character is less confusing

[@brumm3653]

Many simplified Chinese characters seem to me as weird or broken.

[@Amiaaaaaaaaa]

簡體字要死

[@willyou2199]

Its the Japanese who simplified 寫 first, they removed the dot, as with many of the shinjitai characters, they simplify them in a very weird way. Don't blame us Chinese, We just borrowed them and never looked back.

[@OngoingDiscovery]

Its really hard, but i've spoken to japanese people about this and while storke order matters, if the charaacter looks right then its fine. My favorite example of how illogical the system can be is the stroke order of the symbol for left (左）and right (右）They look like they would have the same first stroke... but they dont

[@ignatiusqi9736]

like, stroke orders does not matter THAT much. it's just pure convention for the writer's convenience. it's not a big deal if you mess things up except turning yourself into an inefficient piece of joke maybe.

[@Jayvee4635]

2:46 - Depression

[@anonymousbub3410]

My Chinese teacher used to say that for some box looking characters you do the sides and tip first then the middle then close off the bottom.

[@ruysig3193]

I love that only Chinese and Japanese people draw square shapes with three strokes.

[@冬-01]

Yes,The way you write the characters is important but people dont really care if you mess up. It should be one of the least of the things you should worry about when learning Chinese

[@danielbenner7583]

0:13 hey that's the Tripitaka Koreana, no? Haeinsa is my favorite temple in Korea btw

[@erikchengmo]

If you are learning the hanzi character writing in Chinese, there is actually a pattern and guideline for stroke orders. There is even a lyrics/song that goes with it （see below). We learn this either in elementary school or in beginner Chinese class, as it is fundamentally. Knowing the guideline has several benefits: 1. You can write most characters with the guidelines, including those ones that you don’t recognize. 2. To make handwriting more efficient. 3. For people who care about the looks of their writings or practice calligraphy, knowing the standardized order actually makes writing and structuring the characters easier. This is how we make sure our handwritings look balanced and can fit inside a square format. For advanced writers, knowing the correct or most efficient order also helps them to simplify or stylize their writings, such as in Xingshu （行書；semi-cursive）. This is the pattern in Chinese: 从上到下为主，从左到右为辅。 上下左右俱全，根据层次分组； 横竖交叉先横，撇捺交叉先撇； 中间突出先中，右上有点后补； 上包下时先外，下包上时先内； 三框首横末折，大囗最后封底； 分歧遵照《规范》，做到流畅美观。 An English explanation/translation can be found on Wikipedia: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order#General_guidelines

[@PC_Simo]

I guess that, if you were taught this way of writing since you were 2 years old, it would just kind of start coming naturally, which is infinitely better than trying to consciously memorize and analyze the stroke order and direction 🙂.

[@incognito-qs8jg]

Honestly-- would people really notice if you wrote the strokes in the wrong order? In the classroom context, sure, your calligraphy teacher probably would! But in the real world? Would there really be a person breathing down your neck as you fill up an application form? In my opinion, follow the general pattern and everything is going to be A-OK.

[@m8sonmiller]

It seems like it does make a visible difference when you write in cursive, since it affects how your strokes connect to each other and thus changes the shape of the character, but as far as block letters go it doesn't appear to make a difference, at least to my western eyes.

[@Aakkosti]

Yes. The faster you write, the more the stroke order matters. It affects the way the strokes blend together, making the character look misshapen if the order is wrong. As a bonus, the correct orders are optimized for minimum pen movement.

[@amandasmith593]

I don't know how they notice, but they do. The Japanese professor at my first college could tell and he did not tolerate writing in the wrong order.

[@vytarrus]

Actually, people simply write less all over the world. I've read that people in Asia are forgetting how to write properly too, because they just type everything.

[@ifurkend]

In traditional handwriting with an actual ballpoint/pencil/brush, the end of each stroke mostly points toward the beginning of the next stroke, that's how people can tell your stroke order.

[@mbdxgdb2]

(For Japanese at least) stroke order doesn't matter, I mean it does, if you want to hand write anything, but if you're typing (and let's face it, you are) then there's no need to worry about it. There isn't even a written portion of any of the official Japanese language tests.

[@CeoLogJM]

I don't know tbh. I just write kanji enough for them to look correct, my stroke order is also mostly correct, I'm not sure how strict people really are over there about this stuff, maybe a bit in school.

[@NativLang]

True, it could be more educational. That's the context I know corrections from.

[@MusicalRaichu]

In my experience, stroke order is useful in several respects. It helps you write the characters so that they look as expected, it lets you read other people's handwriting, and (believe it or not) it lets you write characters in the air (without ink) and people know what you've written. I think there's even a word for that (Japanese seem to have a word for everything).

[@Thee9thAaroniero]

They will forgive you because you're a foreigner

[@burtonlang]

+MusicalRaichu Similarly, software for inputting Han character text from writing (on touchscreen devices; e.g. some Apple devices include such software) relies on proper stroke order.

[@MusicalRaichu]

***** oh yeah i've seen people do that.

[@henrytang7025]

Wait, for the socond one, I always thought it was the horizontal line in the middle BEFORE the vertical one.

[@henrytang7025]

Nevermind.

[@tinyhowie]

I thought so too.

[@ffzelda5076]

i am chinese ,you are right

[@tsujimasen]

The differences between China and Japan are covered in the video.

[@trien30]

Henry Tang Japanese divergence in stroke order is due to 草書, cursive Chinese, stroke order, which is way different than other styles of Chinese.

[@keithterrill2303]

Learning the Radical order is interesting. I once wrote a simple sentence out and showed my friend Li who lives in China. He at once told me that I did not write it correctly. And what he meant was the stroke order and direction was wrong. He could see it. To me it is akin to spelling. I watched him look words up in his Chinese dictionary. He would write the word out in the air with his finger, and turned pages based on the strokes. Very interesting....

[@bluetannery1527]

Chinese characters are ludicrous, and I admire you for trying to learn them. Maybe you could talk about the Thai writing system?

[@sereysothe.a]

he already has in his hardest writing system video. albeit he hasn't devoted a whole entire video to it

[@hellothing]

chinese is not hard if you try

[@appleoxide4489]

On the other hand, kanji is what made me initially interested in Japanese and if it just had kana, I probably wouldn't have been interested and not tried to learn it in the first place.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I felt that way before I started to study them. They're all broken down into radicals and functional components or are themselves a radical or functional component. There's only about 400 of them possible that are used to create all the characters they use. It's a daunting task because you need to know hundreds of them in order to read anything at all. And thousands of them in order to read any sort of regular books. But, there's a lot less confusion and complexity in the system once you start to understand how it works. Eventually you get to the point where you can guess at meanings without knowing the character based upon what the character is made of. Obviously, you won't always be right.

[@nunyabusiness6450]

2:21 I was so surprised because my name is 西西 and I was so excited to see it lmao

[@KarmasAB123]

Every time someone complains about learning English I'm gonna send them this series.

[@jan_kisan]

F--- this stroke order: - no, they will not see the difference. - it's better to draw a square in a "wrong" but fast order, coz it will look more like a square and be easier to read, than the "correct order" cursive gibberish. Same goes for other languages by the way. When learning Russian at elementary school, I was taught sth like this "stroke order" for Russian cursive. And you know what? People who keep following these uncomfortable stupid rules get really REALLY horrible ugly handwriting when writing fast. I told myself then that it was nonsense, and I'll say it again. And what "stroke order" can people talk about if there are fonts where squares are replaced with circles? Which they originally were...

[@xingkunyin5006]

We will if you write fast. Just try write a normal A. Then try to do it with horizontal first. Then write it fast. u l see.

[@AltName7]

Russian cursive is still the strangest cursive I've seen. I've got nothing to add to this thread other than that statement.

[@RizalBudiLeksono]

I think the same thing isn't happen in Japanese kanji.

[@mrpellagra2730]

The same exists in Turkish.Those stupid rules aren't well optimised for fast writing.They make it accurate tho.

[@mysryuza]

Sometimes kanji gets more ridiculous 天 and 夭 have different meanings, where 天 can mean "Heaven" and 夭 could mean "calamity" or "early death" I-

[@craftourartout]

I wouldn't call it ridiculous.....The two characters just look alike, but they are still identifiable, like 日 and 曰. Just like you wouldn't say “ball” and “bail” are ridiculous, right?

[@philyip4432]

It is not at all ridiculous! They are two different words with totally different meanings. It's up to the writers' and readers' literacy level to discern the difference.

[@Xnoob545]

What if your hand shakes and you make the top stroke accidentally go up? That will change the word

[@birch8109]

@@Xnoob545 then rewrite it

[@ik6non712]

@@Xnoob545 rewrite the word

[@dianal1679]

omg I thought I was going crazy when he talked about the 3rd and 4th strokes in 田, but turns out it's just different in Japanese lol When I was young, I was taught that using the right stroke order helped you make sure your characters turned out balanced. Seems legit, but then again, I've never tried to write in the wrong order.

[@FourthDerivative]

Legend has it that the inventor of the Chinese characters was a massive alcoholic, and the whole thing is the result of a series of bar bets that he couldn't make his new writing system even more complex and absurd than it already was.

[@newguy90]

Worse than that. The Chinese writing system is based on the cracks that appear in tortoise shells and animal bones when they are heated over fire. Court oracles would do this to tell the future, and the different crack patterns would mean different things. That's why the oldest Chinese script is called "Oracle bone script".

[@gkky-xx4mc]

@@newguy90 Actually, the court oracles would interpret the cracks that appeared over the characters already inscribed on the oracle bones. It's called "oracle bone script" because it was written on the bones, not because it was the cracks that appeared on the bones. Besides that, I do have to agree that the characters are massively confusing, but there is a predictable pattern throughout the script.

[@ambulocetusnatans]

Keep watching this channel and you'll see languages that make Chinese seem easy.

[@menonalevi6984]

Hanzi is not so complex and is not absurd (most of the time)

[@concernedcitizen6313]

Having a BA in linguistics, I'm truly loving these videos.

[@dubilam4006]

honestly i’m very grateful for stroke orders because it helps you write so much faster

[@sohopedeco]

Stroke order, at least in Chinese, is something you kinda end up "catching" naturally, even without that much effort, kinda like learning how to use "in", "on" and "at" in English. It is not compared to actually memorizing the hanzi or pronouncing tones correctly, which do take a lot of work.

[@YummYakitori]

Now try these characters: “烏龜” (tortoise) and “龍” (dragon)

[@XianWangTheo]

「龜」 simplified into 「龟」, and 「黽」 simplified into 「黾」 maybe are the only two radicals that I agree to simplified 😂 the rest, most of the simplified words are just kinda bullshit for me

[@VenomBurger]

@@XianWangTheo And if you want the Japanese, 亀 for Tortoise and 竜 for Dragon

[@XianWangTheo]

@@VenomBurger the japanese dragon dragon are actually does bad, not as bad as the simplified chinese one tho the tortoise is still makes sense

[@VenomBurger]

@@XianWangTheo It's like 立 + 龟

[@hanziwithdakang3902]

龜 and鳥 are my favorites! They are so pretty!

[@michaelzheng5250]

A Chinese immigrant here, the stroke order of Hanzi (yeah, the Japanese call it Kanji, feel like it should be called Hanzi because us Chinese came up with this) really isn’t that complicated once you get the general rules. However, the more complicated characters, especially in traditional, can really confuse me, and this is coming from someone who actually takes weekly Chinese calligraphy lessons. When practicing Calligraphy, it is not just about the order of the strokes, it also is about the flow of the motion you take from one stroke to another, and the 笔锋 (bifeng, literally the point of the brush), which is basically which way the brush is pointed, and how it compares to the motion of the brush. It is a very artistic subject and I am slightly sad to see people slowly abandoning it.

[@VenomBurger]

The Japanese call it Kanji because Hanzi is hard to pronounce in Japanese, but it's still 漢字 at the end of the day.

[@michaelzheng5250]

Hollow Inside I know, just that everyone outside of China is pronouncing it the Japanese way, I don’t really get offended when people call it Kanji I just think to myself why in the world would everyone pronounce what is literally “Character of the Han” the Japanese way.

[@michaelzheng5250]

Hollow Inside oh yeah also it is not 漢字 in mainland China anymore, it is 汉字 ;)

[@VenomBurger]

@@michaelzheng5250 Right is 漢 traditional?

[@michaelzheng5250]

Hollow Inside yeah, it is traditional, the Chinese Simplified version is a combination of 氵and 又

[@kaktotak8267]

You didn't explain why it exists.

[@joemom2671]

I don't really think there is a reason for it.

[@GlamStacheessnostalgialounge]

Actually if I remember right the Chinese writing system was made like this on purpose in old times so common peasants wouldn't want to learn to write.

[@heukmoon4156]

no, Chinese simplified character is made by reducing stroke order. and traditional character is also made upon stroke order. so if you don't know stroke order, it will be very hard to learn.

[@notoriouswhitemoth]

Quite simply, because having a standard makes things easier to teach.

[@heukmoon4156]

here is the thing, it will be same thing to write 水(sui) and 木(mu) without stroke order. but only stroke order changes these two characters' looks.