笔画和笔顺
Strokes and stroke order

请你拿一支笔，写一个“十”字。你的手先画一横，再画一竖，两下就写完了。这两下叫笔画。汉字不是一幅画，是一笔一笔写出来的：一个字用几笔、先写哪一笔，都是固定的。这个固定的顺序叫笔顺。你已经写了几百个汉字，其实早就在用笔画和笔顺了，只是没有人给它们起过名字。

Pick up a pen and write 十. Your hand draws one horizontal line, then one vertical line — two movements, and the character is finished. Those movements are 笔画, strokes. A Chinese character is not a picture you draw; it is written one stroke at a time, and both how many strokes it takes and what order they come in are fixed. That fixed order is 笔顺. You have written hundreds of characters already, so you have been using both all along. Nobody had given them names yet.

常见的笔画有五种：横、竖、撇、捺、折。“一”只有一横；“十”是一横加一竖；“人”是一撇加一捺——撇从右上到左下，捺从左上到右下；“口”的右上角有一个折，手不离开纸，方向拐了个弯。另外还有点、提、钩，也很常见。

Five kinds of stroke cover most of what your hand does. 横 héng, the horizontal. 竖 shù, the vertical. 撇 piě, falling from upper right to lower left. 捺 nà, falling from upper left to lower right. And 折 zhé, the turn: one stroke that changes direction without the pen leaving the paper. So 一 is a single 横, 十 is 横 plus 竖, 人 is 撇 plus 捺, and 口 has a 折 at its top right corner. Three more you meet constantly: 点 the dot, 提 the upward flick, 钩 the hook.

数笔画有一个很实际的用处。词典后边有一张表，把汉字从少笔到多笔排好：一画的字在最前面，二画、三画的字跟在后边。碰到一个不会读的字，你可以数出它的笔画，再到表里去找。“人”两画，“大”三画，“木”四画，“好”六画（女三画加子三画），“我”和“你”都是七画。数错一画，就查不到。

Counting strokes has a very practical use. At the back of a dictionary there is a table that lines the characters up from fewest strokes to most: the one-stroke characters first, then two, then three. When you meet a character you cannot read, you count its strokes and look it up in that table. 人 is two, 大 is three, 木 is four, 好 is six (女 three plus 子 three), and 我 and 你 are both seven. Miscount by one and the character is not where you are looking.

笔顺为什么要固定？第一，顺序对了，字才写得又快又好看，一笔连着一笔，写起来也顺。第二，顺序固定，数笔画的时候才不容易数错、数漏。第三，手机和电脑上的手写输入，认的就是你的笔顺。写“十”，先横后竖；写“人”，先撇后捺；写“大”，横、撇、捺。全部的笔顺规则，第二部分会一条一条地讲。

Why must the order be fixed? First, with the right order the character comes out fast and well shaped, each stroke flowing into the next. Second, a fixed order is what lets you count strokes without losing one. Third, handwriting input on a phone or computer recognises your stroke order, not your finished shape. So: 十 is 横 then 竖; 人 is 撇 then 捺; 大 is 横, 撇, 捺. The full set of ordering rules is collected in Arc B, one rule at a time.

现在拿一张纸，写下你的中文名字，一笔一笔慢慢写，一边写一边数：一共几画？再写“我”“你”“好”三个字，数完以后去词典后边的笔画表里找一找，看看你数得对不对。数得准，你就能查任何一个不认识的字了。

Take a sheet of paper and write your Chinese name slowly, one stroke at a time, counting as you go. How many strokes in total? Then write 我, 你 and 好, count each, and check your numbers against the stroke table at the back of a dictionary. Once your counts are reliable you can look up any character you cannot read — which is exactly what the next lesson is about.