Basic Chinese strokes
The stroke shapes of Chinese characters, how often each appears in HSK 1-3, and examples to practice.
The strokes and how often they appear
We counted the strokes of the 247 HSK 1-3 characters whose Japanese and Chinese stroke orders match stroke for stroke, using KanjiVG's stroke types: 1,560 strokes in all. The six most common, héng, shù, piě, diǎn, héngzhé and nà, make up 84% of them.
| Stroke | Name | Pinyin | Count | Share | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㇐ | horizontal | héng | 445 | 29% | 白 百 半 本 |
| ㇑ | vertical | shù | 275 | 18% | 白 百 半 本 |
| ㇒ | left-falling stroke | piě | 256 | 16% | 八 白 半 本 |
| ㇔ | dot | diǎn | 175 | 11% | 百 半 不 菜 |
| ㇕ | horizontal-turn | héngzhé | 98 | 6% | 白 百 常 唱 |
| ㇏ | right-falling stroke | nà | 68 | 4% | 八 本 菜 茶 |
| ㇆ | horizontal-turn-hook | héngzhégōu | 44 | 3% | 常 的 分 服 |
| ㇀ | rising stroke | tí | 37 | 2% | 打 蛋 到 非 |
| ㇚ | vertical hook | shùgōu | 26 | 2% | 打 到 可 前 |
| ㇟ | vertical-curve-hook | shùwāngōu | 24 | 2% | 儿 老 亮 商 |
| ㇖ | horizontal hook | hénggōu | 22 | 1% | 常 蛋 好 家 |
| ㇇ | horizontal then left-falling | héngpiě | 19 | 1% | 服 今 客 了 |
| ㇜ | left-falling-turn | piězhé | 12 | 1% | 到 公 会 去 |
| ㇛ | left-falling then dot | piědiǎn | 11 | 1% | 好 妹 女 要 |
| ㇁ | curved hook | wāngōu | 9 | 1% | 狗 好 家 了 |
| ㇓ | vertical then left-falling | shùpiě | 8 | 1% | 非 服 明 朋 |
| ㇈ | horizontal-turn-curve-hook | héngzhéwāngōu | 6 | 0% | 吃 机 几 九 |
| ㇂ | slanted hook | xiégōu | 4 | 0% | 我 找 婚 或 |
| ㇄ | vertical-curve | shùwān | 4 | 0% | |
| ㇉ | vertical-turn-curve-hook | shùzhézhégōu | 4 | 0% | 弟 号 写 梯 |
| ㇗ | vertical-turn | shùzhé | 4 | 0% | 医 区 世 牙 |
| ㇃ | flat slanted hook | biǎnxiégōu | 3 | 0% | 息 忘 心 |
| ㇋ | horizontal, turn, turn, left-falling | héngzhézhépiě | 3 | 0% | 道 近 送 |
| ㇙ | vertical-rising | shùtí | 3 | 0% | 衣 比 婚 |
The basic strokes
Héng (horizontal), shù (vertical), piě (left-falling), nà (right-falling), diǎn (dot) and tí (rising) are the building blocks; every other stroke is one of them with a turn (zhé) or a hook (gōu).
Turns and hooks
Compound strokes are written in one movement without lifting the pen: héngzhé turns from right to down, shùgōu ends in a small hook to the left.
Why KanjiVG's types
Make Me a Hanzi has no stroke types, so we borrow KanjiVG's labels, and only for characters where the two orders match stroke by stroke. The Chinese names follow the usual classroom terms; the Japanese analysis sometimes splits a stroke differently, which is one reason the counts are an estimate.