klortho 10 Report post Posted December 22, 2005 I know it's pronounced "huà", but is the character for this "划" or "画"? In my pocket dictionary, in the radical index, the headers are, for example, "十二画". When I asked my Chinese friends, there was massive disagreement. Perhaps they are interchangeable. I recently bought a new, massive dictionary, and one entry it has for "划" is "see '画'". Can anybody help clarify this for me? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chenpv 9 Report post Posted December 22, 2005 in the radical index, the headers are, for example, "十二画"This is correct. In the past, Chinese use '毛笔' (what's the English name for this? brush pen? hair pen? I don't know.) to write and paint. but '划' has a 'knife' in it, which I think suggests 'scratch' in the sense of 'Stroke'. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xiaocai 235 Report post Posted December 22, 2005 According to my 新华字典, both are right. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skylee 1,912 Report post Posted December 22, 2005 We are actually talking about three words in traditional Chinese. They are 劃 (hua2, hua4), 畫 (hua4), and 划 (hua2). The simplified version of 劃 is 划. The simplified version of 畫 is 画. 劃 and 畫 share the meaning of "stroke" as in "strokes of a character". (But both words have other meanings.) Thus both 划 and 画 are ok for the meaning of "stroke" as in "strokes of a character". 划 also means the action of rowing. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hakkaboy 10 Report post Posted December 22, 2005 Chenpv, I think 毛笔 can be just "brush" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites