Character Stroke Order For 火

[minsad77]

Hi, can someone tell me the correct stroke order for fire: 火?

I found two different stroke orders. Which one is correct?

http://writeinchinese.com/node/86

http://www.dragonwise.hku.hk/dragon2/schools/archives/stroke/A4F5.html

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:%E7%81%AB-order.gif

谢谢你

[LemonSu]

hello there,

I was taught to write in this order:

1. the dot thing at the left

2. the big,long, facing the left thing

3. the right dot thing

4. the small, short thing facing right

=。= sorry it sounds weird. FYI, youtube is blocked in mainland China, thus I am not able to see some of the above links.

Hopefully you can understand what I am talking about. If you still need help, PM me and i will write it for you.

[glenzeppelin]

Hey,

I studied Japanese and the correct Japanese stroke order is: 1. little dash on the left. 2. little dash on the right. 3. long line going down to the left. 4. short line going down to the right. The Chinese stroke order should be the same.

[baatoo]

the first is right.

you can check it at http://www.5dhz.com/bhbs/

[yonglin]

I think there has been a thread about this before...?

The left-right-middle makes more sense if you write vertically, whilst the left-middle-right makes more sense if you write horizonally.

For this reason, different people write the character in different ways. You'll find educated people writing it in both ways.

[Hofmann]

The correct stroke order for 火 is dot, short丿, long 丿, ㇏ (田蘊章 (2004). 《歐楷解析》. 天津: 天津人民美術出版社. ISBN 7530525875).

The standard stroke orders of mainland China (source), Hong Kong (source), Taiwan (source), and Japan (source) are also like this. Therefore, there is no way the stroke order can be anything else.

[skylee]

If the four strokes are numbered 1 to 4 from left to right, I write it in the order of 1423.

[Shi Tong]

You'd be right then skylee, as hoffman's links proove!

Using Skylee's method, I've always written 1234.. so I guess it's back to the drawing board! ;)

[Jose]

I've always written it with the long stroke as the second one too, which is a bit embarrassing since 火 was probably one of the characters I learned in my first year of Chinese back in 1994. It's going to be be hard to correct 16 years of bad practice.

[Shi Tong]

Same as myself though- I "started" learning 9 years ago and generally think my stroke order is "ok"ish, but ask me why I write it that way, and I just think that I pretty much use logic and guess.

I would have thought that a lot of laowai learners use a similar method.. :blink:

[crazy-meiguoren]

Thanks for the link to the official stroke order for this character. It's different from how I would have figured it out myself.

I would have figured it out like this: left dot, left falling, right dot, right falling. That's based purely on being told that the stroke order is left to right, top to bottom. (Or is that top to bottom, left to right? Which takes priority?)

[trien27]

Hi, can someone tell me the correct stroke order for fire: 火?

I found two different stroke orders. Which one is correct?

http://writeinchinese.com/node/86

http://www.dragonwise.hku.hk/dragon2/schools/archives/stroke/A4F5.html

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:%E7%81%AB-order.gif

谢谢你

The first & fifth links are correct. The third link doesn't show the strokes. The second and fourth are just plain wrong. Proper stroke order for 火: 丶丿人 [That's what my Taiwanese teachers & my family have taught me: The second & fourth links seem to be by people from Taiwan? I find it weird that they would rather teach others a non-standard, handwritten "variant" form.]

I studied Japanese and the correct Japanese stroke order is: 1. little dash on the left. 2. little dash on the right. 3. long line going down to the left. 4. short line going down to the right. The Chinese stroke order should be the same.

Better check your sources: Chinese characters were borrowed into Japanese first, not the other way around.

[Glenn]

Better check your sources: Chinese characters were borrowed into Japanese first, not the other way around.

According to this video (and the rest in the series) that Hofmann posted in the 忄 thread, who had them first had no bearing on whether they chose historically consistent stroke orders as the standard. In fact, at one point he says that the Japanese are the only ones to have gotten one right (possibly the 右/有/布 series). Plus, PRC and ROC and Hong Kong standards differ for some characters. In that case which Chinese is the right one?

[minsad77]

OK, great help. Thanks everyone.

[Hofmann]

In that case which Chinese is the right one?

As said in the video, no modern standard gets everything right.

[Jose]

While looking for additional information on the 火 stroke order, I have come across a Chinese blog post written by a mother who used to write 火 the way I was taught, and was then surprised that her daughter was being taught the two-dots-first order. Her reaction reminded me of my surprise when I first read this thread.

She then went on to investigate this matter and has written an extremely interesting post with several stroke-order graphs where she discusses the common cases where the standard taught to children these days seems to have changed from what used to be taught in the past. In addition to 火, all the usual suspects, like 里, 方, 母 and 舟, are mentioned, so it makes for very interesting reading:

http://www.17u.com/blog/article/189253.html