Posted 2017/5/11
Every Chinese character is composed of several strokes, which include the horizontal stroke, vertical stroke, a long left-falling stroke, dot, right-falling knife-shaped stroke, short right-rising stroke, etc.
When writing Chinese characters, there is a fixed regulation of the direction and sequence of strokes, and this is called "orders of strokes". The basic rule is that horizontal stroke precedes vertical stroke, long left-falling stroke precedes right-falling knife-shaped stroke, from top to bottom, from left side to right side, from enclosing part to interior part and then seal the opening, and from center to right and left. But the order of strokes of the same character may be changed in different styles of wring.
Seen from the structure, Chinese characters can be classified to single characters and integrated characters. The characters such as "中(center)、火(fire)、木(wood)、水(water)" belong to single characters. Each integrated character is composed of several parts, and some of the integrated characters are of left-right structure, such as "明(brightness)” and “林(forest)", some of up-and-down structure, such as "众(crowd)” and “想(think)", some of left-center-right structure, such as "谢(thank)” and “树(tree)", some of up-center-down structure, such as "意(meaning)” and “冀(expect)", some of half-encircled structure such as "句(sentence)” and “医(cure)", and some of full-encircled structure such as "回(return)” and “国(country)".
The parts that constitute Chinese characters are called "Pianpang"(a radical on one side of a character), and the classification of the same kind of Pianpang is called "Bushou"(division header, or indexing component), and the characters with the same Bushou (division header) have certain connections with each other. For instance, "海 (sea), "酒(liquor)’, "池(pool)” and "洗 (wash)" are all connected with water because everyone of them has a "氵"(water), and the characters with the division header of "氵" are usually connected with water; "茶''(tea),"花"(flower),"草"(grass),药(drug)" are all connected with "grass" because all of them have a "艹(grass)”; and "肺 ( lung)”, "肠 (intestines)”, "肝 (liver) " and "肥 (fat) " are all connected with meat or abodominal organs because all of them contain a "月"(an abodominal organ). So when you encounter an unknown character, you can even guess its general meaning from its division header.
