Mark Zegarelli
Mark Zegarelli

Introducing Basic Stroke

shù

The next stroke is called shù, which means "vertical," and is simply a line written from top to bottom:

Stroke #2 – shù:

(Characters 4-14)

Unlike héng, shù isn't a character in Chinese because it doesn't have a meaning on its own in modern Chinese writing. But it appears in many characters when combined with other strokes. For example, here's a common character that you can write using only shù and héng strokes:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

shí

ten (10)

Stroke Order (2): héng + shù

 

In this character, the stroke order may be different from the one you use when making a plus sign in English: The horizontal héng stroke comes first, followed by the vertical shù stroke. Although ignoring this stroke order may not make much of a difference in this character, it could affect your writing later on as the characters become increasingly complex.

 

Here's another common Chinese character that uses only héng and shù strokes:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

gōng

work

Stroke Order (3): héng + shù + héng

 

And here's yet another: In this character, the lengths of the two héng strokes are varied.

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

shàng

up, on, above, before

Stroke Order (3): shù + héng + héng

 

In this character, the top héng stroke is slightly shorter than the one below it:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

gān

dry

gàn

to do

Stroke Order (3): héng + shù + héng

 

Notice that this character has two significantly different meanings, in each case paired with a different tone when spoken in Mandarin.

 

As you may have guessed, the length of a stroke in each character is important. In some cases, varying the length of a single stroke will change the meaning of that character. Here's a good example using two common characters:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

earth, soil

Stroke Order (3): héng + shù + héng

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

shì

knight

Stroke Order (3): héng + shù + héng

 

In the character , meaning "earth," the bottom héng stroke is longer than the top one. In contrast, in the character shì, meaning "knight," the bottom héng stroke is shorter than the top one.

  

Here's another character with varied stroke lengths. This time, the top and bottom héng strokes are both the same length, and a little bit longer than the middle stroke:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

wáng

king

Stroke Order (4): héng + héng + shù + héng

 

And as another example, the following character includes two shù and two héng strokes, in each case of varying lengths. Begin with the longest shù, then attach the short héng to it, and finally complete the remaining strokes:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

zhǐ

stop

Stroke Order (4): shù + héng + shù + héng

 

When writing the next character, begin with a héng stroke on top and then copy the strokes in the same order from the previous character:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

zhèng

straight

Stroke Order (5): héng + shù + héng + shù + héng

 

Here's an example of a simple character where, in my humble opinion, stroke order matters because it helps to provide structural balance to the resulting character. This character is one of two common ways to say "sweet" in Mandarin (the other way is 甜, pronounced tián):

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

gān

sweet

Stroke Order (5): héng + shù + shù + héng + héng

 

Before moving on, notice that甘and干are both pronounced gān in Mandarin. These two words are homophones – that is, they have the same pronunciation and the same tone. Thus, you'll use context to distinguish them when speaking Mandarin, just as you distinguish homophones such as to, too, and two in English.

 

To finish up, here's one final character that you can write using only héng and shù strokes.

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

fēng

abundant, fertile

Stroke Order (4): héng + héng + shù + héng

 

As you can imagine, every new stroke that you add to your repertoire will greatly extend your ability to write Chinese characters.