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Good stroke order sites?


Magnus

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Hi everyone!

I know there's been quite alot written about differerent stroke order sites and tools, though I would like to know if anyone knows about some really good resources, like http://www.edu.tw/EDU_WEB/EDU_MGT/MANDR/EDU6300001/allbook/bishuen/c8.htm?open ? I am very thankul for having found the link to this site on chinese forums, though I would need a site like that for simplified characters. As this site mentioned above is from the taiwanese ministry of education I thought maybe the mainland china's ministry of education has got something similiar to this one. I would be very greatful for any tips/help:)

Thanks for a very nice site:D

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:D Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it. More suggestions is of course welcome:)

Here are some of my favourite links:

http://www.radio86.co.uk/ - News about china etc.

http://textbook.adsotrans.com/ - News in chinese

http://www.kangxizidian.com/ - Complete Kang Xi dictionary

http://140.111.1.40/suo.htm - Dictionary of Chinese character variants

http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/home_en.htm# - Resources for learning Chinese

http://faculty.virginia.edu/cll/chinese_reading/ - Short texts and audio

http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/interact/ebook/digitalPublish/MDownLoad.asp?Book=1&Chap=&Sound=N - "Speak Mandarin In Five Hundreds Words" e-book

http://homepage.mac.com/ccfinder/ - "Chinese character finder"

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Just my thought...

I believe learning any languages should be fun, flexible and interesting.

Thus, I don't always follow the strict Chinese stroke order.

If you can remember Chinese characters in your own particular way, by means of writing them in your preferred order, why change yourself just to accommodate others? Isn't it great to be different sometimes? :wink:

K.

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Interesting. Take a look at this stoke order at the site at #8. This is how I used to write this word. Then many friends told me that it should be written in the way as in the site at #1 (last column). I guess it was because we had different teachers. So now when nobody is looking at me I write from left to right. If I have to use the stroke order input method, I start from the middle. sigh. :D

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Skylee,

Ha ha... If I were you, I would also write from left to right in both traditional & simplified forms! :mrgreen:

Just curious, did you have to take Chinese calligraphy exams in Hong Kong?

Because we have to do Chinese calligraphy in Malaysia if you choose Chinese subject for your "O" Level. I hated it so much because my calligraphy was so ugly (We call this type of ugly calligraphy 鬼画符 in Malaysia) :mrgreen:

K.

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I believe learning any languages should be fun' date=' flexible and interesting.

Thus, I don't always follow the strict Chinese stroke order.

If you can remember Chinese characters in your own particular way, by means of writing them in your preferred order, why change yourself just to accommodate others? Isn't it great to be different sometimes?[/quote']

Well said. You have to keep in mind the Chinese education system likes to show a problem, and then a way to solve that problem and get the student to memorize it (this is quoted from Chinese natives, not my observations); ie: here's a character, here's how you write it.

Just because it's not their way doesn't mean it's not a right way.

If the end result is the same, then how much does it matter if it's not perfect. Native Chinese have messy handwriting anyways, I don't think anyone will notice too much.

As for sites

http://www.cchar.com/ Even though it's not a site, it seems to be exactly what you're looking for.

I couldn't find any mention of how many characters it supports though, I might take a look at it in the future.

There's another similar product that I can't remember right now.

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If you can remember Chinese characters in your own particular way, by means of writing them in your preferred order, why change yourself just to accommodate others?

I don't agree, I think stroke order is important whether in Chinese or in English. The shape of the characters are not the same if you use different stroke orders. For an example of how this is important one only needs to look at young children's handwriting in English. My son uses incorrect stroke orders with some numeric characters and it really shows, making the characters look ugly. For example when he writes the number 5 he writes the horizontal stroke first, when he writes a 6 he starts from the centre instead of the top (i.e. he starts from the end of the stroke and finishes at the start) and when he writes an 8 he starts and finishes from the centre.

Saying that, with some complex characters stroke order is not very clear (trying to find out what is the correct order is near to impossible) and small differences may not make much difference. But in general I believe the effort should be made to to learn and use the correct stroke order.

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My son uses incorrect stroke orders with some numeric characters and it really shows, making the characters look ugly.

Of course, I can see your point there. Try to view it more objectively, your son's handwriting may be unimpressive but it's only one of its kind, so you can easily descry his handwriting. :wink:

Does the process really outweigh the outcome? Let the debate begin... :wink:

K.

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http://www.eon.com.hk/estroke/

Can't believe no one has mentioned the amazing ESTROKE, which will show you the animated stroke order for any character, traditional or simplified. I always use it as a reference for writing extremely complex characters. The online version is free, and the downloadable trial version even lets you print out practice sheets and pronounces the strokes for you as it draws, albeit with incorrect tones(now how did that come about?!)...

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

The online estroke thing is cool! I'm going to try to use this.

Doing your own thing is probably ok if you are willing to accept the disadvantages.

Not knowing proper stroke order could affect your ability to learn to read/write cursive and perhaps just plain old hastily-written standard characters. Also, I think that the Wubi input method requires that you enter strokes in the proper order, and learning to use Wubi will help you remember to write characters while using a computer.

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There are 2 input methods that get abbreviated to Wubi - Wubihua and Wubizixing. Generally speaking, Wubihua is based on strokes and is what you find on mobile-phones, and Wubizixing is based on character radicals/components (not strokes) and is used on computers.

Even though it's based on character shapes, it's still very useful for helping you learn to write as you still need to know how to write the character in order to combine the shapes in the correct order. e.g. for typing 想 you would first type the key for the 木 radical, then 目 and then 心. It also helps break your mindset away from the "characters are made up of strokes" mentality and helps you to start thinking "characters are made up of shapes".

Searching the forums for Wubizixing will bring up several threads related to learning this input method.

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Stroke orders make a bit more sense when you try brush writing. The idea of stroke orders was conceived, I think, to make writing with a brush as comfortable as efficient as possible.

I also think writing with the right stroke order leads to better-looking handwriting.

For what it's worth, my Japanese kanji dictionary says that the left-first stroke order for 興 is the one taught in schools, but middle first is also a common and accepted method.

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Just wanted to point out that the stroke order for simplified characters on estroke is not always what would be considered standard in the Mainland. I had some issues with a Chinese teacher of mine when we did stroke order exercises for homework. For example, the stroke order for the left part of 将.

However, I don't think that this issue stems from the fact that estroke is wrong. Rather, there seems to be two slightly different systems in parellel use. I read on Wikipedia that the Mainland has adopted a slightly different stroke order system compared to modern HK and Taiwan, essentially one more suitable for horizontal writing.

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i never used to write with the right stroke order. but once i got wenlin (it has stroke order animations) i thought i might try doing it that way. i found it really helped with not only my hand writing but also in memorising the characters. characters no longer seem like a jumble of strokes but an ordered form. whenever i look at a character now - even ones i haven't seen - I can see the stroke order so i don't have to think.. 'okay so how am i going to write this'. so for me it's certainly helped. i took a couple of caligraphy classes in china and found it certainly helped there too. those who didnt have a set stroke order struggled to make the characters look right.

when he writes an 8 he starts and finishes from the centre

hey thats what i do! then again i have really bad hand writing....

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