Mandarin grammar: Strokes

Mandarin characters are formed with strokes.

There are around thirty strokes in total in Mandarin. Here are five of them:

For many centuries the character 永yǒng (forever) has been used to practice writing characters correctly, as it contains each of the strokes listed above. Can you spot them?

Strokes are written in a certain order in Mandarin to make characters quicker and easier to complete, and to help make them look the same each time:

1. Top to bottom

2. Left to right

3. Horizontal then vertical

4. Intersecting (a line that crosses another line) stroke last

5. Diagonal right to left

6. Diagonal left to right

7. Outside frame before inside

8. Inside before closing frame