How many types of strokes are there in Chinese Characters?
Ask different Chinese language teachers how many types of strokes are there in Chinese characters, you will get different answers … 20, 29, 31 … Chinese teachers are not sure how many strokes are used in Chinese characters?
If you do a research on number of strokes from various sources (e.g. internet, Chinese textbooks) you will find that there is no definite answer.
In English, everyone is sure that there are 26 alphabets, no more no less. Why is the answer on the types of basic strokes in Chinese characters so fuzzy? Nobody seems to really care about the actual number of strokes.
How many types of strokes are there in Chinese characters?
Our answer is 35! To be clearer, we are only talking about simplified Chinese characters and only cover the frequently-used characters. We covered more than 5,000 of these characters, which are more than sufficient to use in modern days. Schools in Singapore cover about 3,000 characters. This also covers the scope required by *HSK and BCT tests.
Improvements
1. Unique Names
In the process of extracting and identifying the basic strokes used within these few thousands characters, we also improve how these strokes are described and named. Every stroke has an unique name. A dot that slants from left to right (LR-Dot) is different from a dot that slants from right to left (RL-Dot). Previously, both are known as 'dian', with no distinction between them.
The strokes are also named based on their appearance. We try to distinguish even slight differences between strokes. Read more in 'What-You-See-Is-What-You-Name''.
3. Grouped into 8 Families
The 35 strokes of Chinese characters can be easily remembered by classifying them into 8 families, namely families of Mr Straight, Miss Curve, Baby Dot, Mr 7-Bend, Mr L-Bend, Mr L7-Bends, Mr 7L-Bends and Mr Double-7 Bends.
Meet the 35 strokes here.
Find out the name of these strokes in What are the names of strokes used in Chinese Characters?
