<p>I don't think it's a silly question, but it's very broad in scope and difficult to answer, but I will try to do so.</p>
<p>I think the focus on strokes is mistaken, but it's an easy mistake to make and probably the biggest misconception about Chinese characters among Westerners. I don't think native Chinese would think of the strokes at all when composing a character, unless it was specifically relevant such as when doing calligraphy. When I started learning characters I had to memorize each stroke to begin with, one after the other, but after a certain point it wasn't necessary any more and I stopped doing it.</p>
<p>A character like 好 is composed of two parts: 女 and 子. In this case the components are themselves simpler characters, but they don't need to be. If someone asked how to write the character 好, the answer would be something like: &quot;Female side radical, with 'child'.&quot; This is the equivalent of &quot;spelling&quot; for Chinese characters. Unlike English, the components can be placed above, below or around each other, not only alongside.</p>
<p>By analogy, words in English could also seem to be composed of strokes for someone not familiar with the Latin alphabet (and indeed they are) but focusing on this would create confusion. We also never think about the strokes, we think about the letters or letter groups. When I read words such as thought, through, rough, tough, dough, sough I see a a letter group in common (ough) with a few different letters that can go in front of it or behind. So for me even though each of these words has a moderately complex and non-intuitive spelling (and a non-trivial stroke count), I only need to memorize two or at most three &quot;components&quot; which I happen to already know. Which is not at all dissimilar to the way Chinese characters are learned!</p>
<p>I don't know if there are formal &quot;rules&quot;, but I believe the number of &quot;components&quot; for Chinese characters is in the low hundreds and it's probably comparable with the number of letter groups in English. If you learned to read Chinese characters in a formal setting you would quickly start to recognize that a lot of the time, new characters you encounter are made of parts of other characters that you already know how to write. This means that learning is hardest at the beginning but gets exponentially easier the more characters you learn and you would start to notice this effect after maybe 50 or so.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T02:28:05.193Z
Quote:- "This means that learning is hardest at the beginning but gets exponentially easier the more characters you learn and you would start to notice this effect after maybe 50 or so"  I suppose this applies to learning any language as a second language, or learning to drive a car. Everything is easy or at least learnable with patient practice. I think the problem of non-native adults learning Chinese is that they tend to jump straight into complex characters too early, unlike native children who start and stay with the simplest of characters, building up gradually over many years.
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T10:27:22.230Z
“英文字母也是由笔画构成”，这话不假。但是，到了单词的层次，就完全是由字母组成了。复杂词汇也是由部件（词头，词干，词尾）组成。英文的这些组合完全是一维直线的。但是汉字不同。汉字直接是笔画构成，没有字母这个层次，而且是二维平面的。即使使用部件，也是笔画和部件结合使用。学习汉字比学习英语单词要难得多。美国小孩子在六岁时可以阅读英文书籍，中国小孩子六岁可以阅读拼音书籍，但是要到十岁才能阅读汉字书籍。
PdotWang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:04:56.750Z
ough, yes, in the part of the world that uses Latin alphabet, it is sometimes difficult to make sense of a combination of letters. American English is an extreme case. The Romans encountered tribes from the east (east of Rome) who did not have an alphabet of their own (or it was weakly developed). The languages in concern had different phonemes where the Latin alphabet had no counterpart. That was cured by diacritics or compositions of letters, such as "sh" or "kh", but causes much confusion to speakers of other langues using the same (basic) alphabet.
Gyro Gearloose
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:13:19.157Z
"汉字直接是笔画构成，没有字母这个层次" 很多西方人感觉汉字太难学，就是因为他们不知道除了笔画还有部件和部首的层次，所以汉字看起来好像没有任何组建的规律，没法理解或分析，太莫名其妙。
河南宝宝
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:14:11.607Z
@河南宝宝
???????? !!!
Gyro Gearloose
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:17:15.813Z
*ough, yes, in the part of the world that uses Latin alphabet, it is sometimes difficult to make sense of a combination of letter* To be honest most letter combinations in English don't really make sense, you just have to memorise them. In theory a phonetic alphabet should be easy, but in practice I feel even if it is easier than Chinese it's probably not that much easier.
河南宝宝
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:20:00.957Z
Languages which didn't traditionally have a writing system, but have had one developed based on Latin letters, or some other script are an exception. NZ Maori is a good example, or even Hanyu Pinyin. If you know how to pronounce something, it's easy to spell and vice versa. There is no inconsistency or confusion.
河南宝宝
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:23:50.683Z
@河南宝宝 so where and how could I make a start?
Gyro Gearloose
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:33:10.323Z
@GyroGearloose depending on what your goal is, a course in Chinese language that includes or focuses on reading and writing. For me, what worked was character flashcards and lots of repetition. It doesn't have to be large amounts of time each day, as long as it is consistent over a long time. I didn't use a particularly systematic approach, I just made a point of learning whatever vocabulary I encountered that seemed like I would want to use in everyday life.
河南宝宝
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T22:10:52.330Z
Main reasons why English spelling is seemingly nonsensical and reform is unlikely are: 1. Many conventions of English spelling are based on pronunciation from about 15th century, before some major phonological changed occurred (e.g. [Great Vowel Shift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift)). 2. No institution to govern English language (unlike [Académie Française](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française) for French language or [Real Academia Española](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy) for Spanish language). 3. Many divergent dialects of English language.
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T03:34:06.910Z
嚴格的説, 笔画是组成文字的零件/工具. 笔画(stroke) --> 偏旁和部首(radical) --> 字(word). The Chinese radical is similar to the alphabet of English, for example, A(3-stroke alphabet) + C(1-stroke alphabet) + T(2-stroke alphabet) = ACT(word),
r13
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-22T23:27:01.307Z
2024-04-22T23:27:01.307Z
河南宝宝
<p>You might like this Site:
<a href="https://tmrc.tiec.tp.edu.tw/html/rsr20081105093736a6g/sixbook.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://tmrc.tiec.tp.edu.tw/html/rsr20081105093736a6g/sixbook.htm</a></p>
<p>It show how Chinese Words is created.</p>
<p>General speaking, there are exist 6 methods.</p>
<p>For beginner, try to focus on the first one, 象形 (Pictogram?)
it depends on the graphic of the object.</p>
<p>Or, you might try to google keyword: &quot;<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%E8%B1%A1%E5%BD%A2%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8+%E8%B1%A1%E5%BD%A2%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97%E6%9F%A5%E8%A9%A2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">象形字典 象形文字查詢</a>&quot;</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T10:13:00.257Z
把“汉字六书”翻译成“六本书”，是错误的。
PdotWang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T20:51:13.560Z
Dear James, when I ask how to compose strokes to make up characters, how could you even get the idea that I could even recognize the characters in your link, even less extract their meaning?
Gyro Gearloose
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T00:44:02.657Z
@PdotWang 抱歉，英文不好，不知道該怎樣翻譯比較正確
James
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T00:57:31.677Z
There's somebody create a online dictionary of Chinese words. You might interest about it: [Chinese Word Dictionary](https://www.vividict.com/Public/index/page/index/index.html) ...  Beware it only allow you to use it once per day .
James
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T01:07:16.020Z
@GyroGearloose Exactly , when we start to learn Chinese words, we have no ideal about this relactionship yet. After learning 5 or 6 years, we just study the relaction first time. But I think it's much fun for learning Chinese word with somebody. And you might easy to memorize it if you know how it be created.
James
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T01:12:51.190Z
For example, if you wanna to draw a Sun, you might draw a circle. And the original Sun's Chinese word is just a circle and one point in it, then for easier strokes , we wrote it '日' now. So it the moon '月' .  After you learn these 2 Chinese words, you will know after you saw one sun and one moon... it's another day, that's  the word 明 ← 日 + 月 , meaning tomorrow !   Is it much fun now .
James
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T01:24:22.340Z
Another example, if you have to draw a ground. You might draw a Horizontal line . And if you have to figure out that there's something above the ground, you might drip a dot above this line , like a grass grow out the ground. That's  what 上 word's meaning. and the same way, somethind underground !?  that's 下 meaning. After you recogzied these 2 words, you might know what's 卡 word meaning... Someone  STUCK on the ground, half body above the ground , and others underground... that's suck :(
James
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T21:52:57.710Z
@PdotWang 沒人把”六書”翻譯成”六本書”, “6 methods” 意思是”六種方法”, 不是”六本書”
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-25T00:35:29.733Z
@James Thanks for your information. Your translation of "六書" to "6 methods" is correct. The mistake I mentioned on "六本書" means the website name "sixbook.htm".
PdotWang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-25T01:49:43.747Z
@PdotWang 誤會了？  『translation of "六書" to "6 methods" 』的 是  
dROOOze， and that website  is *not* created by me. I have no permission to fix it.
James
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T01:43:15.570Z
2024-04-24T06:35:08.770Z
2024-04-24T06:35:08.770Z
James
<p>我觉得，这个问题是有中文答案的。也许很多专业术语不能准确翻译成英文。</p>
<p>首先，汉字并不是一开始就是这样子的。秦代的程邈发明隶书，为汉字定型，横平竖直，撇捺点勾，上下左右，外括里藏。这就是笔画和结构的来源。从意义方面，有汉字六书。这些都是中文小学语文教材的内容。</p>
<p>确切地说，汉字并不是由笔画组成，而是由偏旁部首组成。只有简单的字是由笔画组成。这些简单的字可以按照结构来组成复杂的字。</p>
<p>汉字的笔画一般来讲有八种，横竖撇捺，点提勾弯。还可以有更多的组合的笔画。横折竖，竖折横，竖勾，横勾，横折竖勾，竖折横折竖弯勾，等等。</p>
<p>记住写字的笔顺和写结构部件的顺序很重要。记住一个字是几画在查字典时有用。比如，山字是三画，而不是四画。</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-22T21:14:40.283Z
2024-04-23T21:22:00.587Z
2024-04-23T21:22:00.587Z
PdotWang
<p>How are strokes composed to make up a Chinese character?</p>
<p>For someone raised on Latin or Latin like alphabets, Chinese characters look very complex (and they are).</p>
<p>There must be some rules to exclude every possible combination of strokes, leaving only the &quot;good&quot; ones, as otherwise no one would be able to handle this.</p>
<p>Are there any formal rules, or how else can I start an understanding?</p>
<p>If this is a silly question or one that has already been asked and answered, I will delete this question.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-22T18:29:15.787Z
A simple search in Google for "[Chinese characters strokes](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Chinese+characters++strokes+)" would help you understand how many types of strokes there are and the basic rule of stroke order
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-22T18:33:43.160Z
@TangHo Thank you, this is helping. But then, Google searches are ever changing. I have made a down-lode of the current article.
Gyro Gearloose
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-22T22:19:56.060Z
I think, we may ask, "Why are there only vowels and consonants in Latin type languages?" a is a, however you pronounce it, ay, eh, or ah ( you don't know till you see the word), but consonants (= with sounding letters) cannot be spoken without a vowel. b = be, c = see, d = dee. If Latin-based languages wrote words as they speak the letters, spelling would be, at least, difficult. "ough" has many pronunciations in English, without any indication of what it should sound like. For someone raised on Chinese, Latin-based languages look very complex, and they are!
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T03:03:47.610Z
@Pedroski Consonants obviously can be pronounced without vowels. There are words without vowels. E.g. in English: *hmm*; single-consonant prepositions in several Slavic languages: *k*, *s*, *v*, *z*; Czech and Slovak also have nouns with syllabic [l̩] or [r̩], e.g. *krk*, *vlk*.
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T05:03:51.927Z
I'm afraid I cannot agree: At the very least, to say any consonant, you will at least need to also say a schwa, "ə". That's why they are called 'consonants".
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T20:39:10.580Z
@Arfrever m and n are semi-vowels
Gyro Gearloose
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:33:30.227Z
@GyroGearloose Neither [m] and [n] nor their syllabic variants [m̩] and [n̩] are [semivowels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel). You were maybe thinking of the term [sonorant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonorant).
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:36:06.403Z
@Arfrever I'm not a linguist, and don't know the proper scientific names.
Gyro Gearloose
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:44:26.647Z
@Pedroski See [Words without vowels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel#Words_without_vowels). Even if native speakers of English or another language are unable to pronounce consonants alone without vowels, or consonant-only words, this does not mean that speakers of other languages cannot pronounce such words. I am able to pronounce not only [sonorants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonorant) without any vowel, but also [obstruents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruent), and not only fricatives (like [f], [s], [x] etc.) but also plosives (like [p], [t], [k] etc.) and affricates.
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-23T21:47:45.470Z
@Pedroski If you tried, I am sure that you would be able to pronounce [ffff...] or snake-imitating [ssss...] without schwa or any other vowel.
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-24T04:30:43.080Z
Bit of a topic for another forum, I just wanted to draw attention to the arbitrary nature of Western languages actually. I cannot say P unless I say pee, or pə, nor sss unless I say sssə, nor fff unless I say fffə. That comes along with breathing out. Even that strange clicking k that some languages have is followed by ə.
Pedroski
<characters>
How are strokes composed to make up a chinese character?
# How are strokes composed to make up a chinese character?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-04-22)

How are strokes composed to make up a Chinese character?

For someone raised on Latin or Latin like alphabets, Chinese characters look very complex (and they are).

There must be some rules to exclude every possible combination of strokes, leaving only the "good" ones, as otherwise no one would be able to handle this.

Are there any formal rules, or how else can I start an understanding?

If this is a silly question or one that has already been asked and answered, I will delete this question.

**Tags:** characters

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: A simple search in Google for "[Chinese characters strokes](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Chinese+characters++strokes+)" would help you understand how many types of strokes there are and the basic rule of stroke order  
> **username_0**: @TangHo Thank you, this is helping. But then, Google searches are ever changing. I have made a down-lode of the current article.  
> **username_2**: I think, we may ask, "Why are there only vowels and consonants in Latin type languages?" a is a, however you pronounce it, ay, eh, or ah ( you don't know till you see the word), but consonants (= with sounding letters) cannot be spoken without a vowel. b = be, c = see, d = dee. If Latin-based languages wrote words as they speak the letters, spelling would be, at least, difficult. "ough" has many pronunciations in English, without any indication of what it should sound like. For someone raised on Chinese, Latin-based languages look very complex, and they are!  
> **username_3**: @username_2 Consonants obviously can be pronounced without vowels. There are words without vowels. E.g. in English: *hmm*; single-consonant prepositions in several Slavic languages: *k*, *s*, *v*, *z*; Czech and Slovak also have nouns with syllabic [l̩] or [r̩], e.g. *krk*, *vlk*.  
> **username_2**: I'm afraid I cannot agree: At the very least, to say any consonant, you will at least need to also say a schwa, "ə". That's why they are called 'consonants".  
> **username_0**: @username_3 m and n are semi-vowels  
> **username_3**: @GyroGearloose Neither [m] and [n] nor their syllabic variants [m̩] and [n̩] are [semivowels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel). You were maybe thinking of the term [sonorant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonorant).  
> **username_0**: @username_3 I'm not a linguist, and don't know the proper scientific names.  
> **username_3**: @username_2 See [Words without vowels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel#Words_without_vowels). Even if native speakers of English or another language are unable to pronounce consonants alone without vowels, or consonant-only words, this does not mean that speakers of other languages cannot pronounce such words. I am able to pronounce not only [sonorants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonorant) without any vowel, but also [obstruents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruent), and not only fricatives (like [f], [s], [x] etc.) but also plosives (like [p], [t], [k] etc.) and affricates.  
> **username_3**: @username_2 If you tried, I am sure that you would be able to pronounce [ffff...] or snake-imitating [ssss...] without schwa or any other vowel.  
> **username_2**: Bit of a topic for another forum, I just wanted to draw attention to the arbitrary nature of Western languages actually. I cannot say P unless I say pee, or pə, nor sss unless I say sssə, nor fff unless I say fffə. That comes along with breathing out. Even that strange clicking k that some languages have is followed by ə.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2024-04-22. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

I don't think it's a silly question, but it's very broad in scope and difficult to answer, but I will try to do so.

I think the focus on strokes is mistaken, but it's an easy mistake to make and probably the biggest misconception about Chinese characters among Westerners. I don't think native Chinese would think of the strokes at all when composing a character, unless it was specifically relevant such as when doing calligraphy. When I started learning characters I had to memorize each stroke to begin with, one after the other, but after a certain point it wasn't necessary any more and I stopped doing it.

A character like 好 is composed of two parts: 女 and 子. In this case the components are themselves simpler characters, but they don't need to be. If someone asked how to write the character 好, the answer would be something like: "Female side radical, with 'child'." This is the equivalent of "spelling" for Chinese characters. Unlike English, the components can be placed above, below or around each other, not only alongside.

By analogy, words in English could also seem to be composed of strokes for someone not familiar with the Latin alphabet (and indeed they are) but focusing on this would create confusion. We also never think about the strokes, we think about the letters or letter groups. When I read words such as thought, through, rough, tough, dough, sough I see a a letter group in common (ough) with a few different letters that can go in front of it or behind. So for me even though each of these words has a moderately complex and non-intuitive spelling (and a non-trivial stroke count), I only need to memorize two or at most three "components" which I happen to already know. Which is not at all dissimilar to the way Chinese characters are learned!

I don't know if there are formal "rules", but I believe the number of "components" for Chinese characters is in the low hundreds and it's probably comparable with the number of letter groups in English. If you learned to read Chinese characters in a formal setting you would quickly start to recognize that a lot of the time, new characters you encounter are made of parts of other characters that you already know how to write. This means that learning is hardest at the beginning but gets exponentially easier the more characters you learn and you would start to notice this effect after maybe 50 or so.

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: Quote:- "This means that learning is hardest at the beginning but gets exponentially easier the more characters you learn and you would start to notice this effect after maybe 50 or so"  I suppose this applies to learning any language as a second language, or learning to drive a car. Everything is easy or at least learnable with patient practice. I think the problem of non-native adults learning Chinese is that they tend to jump straight into complex characters too early, unlike native children who start and stay with the simplest of characters, building up gradually over many years.  
> **username_6**: “英文字母也是由笔画构成”，这话不假。但是，到了单词的层次，就完全是由字母组成了。复杂词汇也是由部件（词头，词干，词尾）组成。英文的这些组合完全是一维直线的。但是汉字不同。汉字直接是笔画构成，没有字母这个层次，而且是二维平面的。即使使用部件，也是笔画和部件结合使用。学习汉字比学习英语单词要难得多。美国小孩子在六岁时可以阅读英文书籍，中国小孩子六岁可以阅读拼音书籍，但是要到十岁才能阅读汉字书籍。  
> **username_0**: ough, yes, in the part of the world that uses Latin alphabet, it is sometimes difficult to make sense of a combination of letters. American English is an extreme case. The Romans encountered tribes from the east (east of Rome) who did not have an alphabet of their own (or it was weakly developed). The languages in concern had different phonemes where the Latin alphabet had no counterpart. That was cured by diacritics or compositions of letters, such as "sh" or "kh", but causes much confusion to speakers of other langues using the same (basic) alphabet.  
> **username_4**: "汉字直接是笔画构成，没有字母这个层次" 很多西方人感觉汉字太难学，就是因为他们不知道除了笔画还有部件和部首的层次，所以汉字看起来好像没有任何组建的规律，没法理解或分析，太莫名其妙。  
> **username_0**: @username_4 ???????? !!!  
> **username_4**: *ough, yes, in the part of the world that uses Latin alphabet, it is sometimes difficult to make sense of a combination of letter* To be honest most letter combinations in English don't really make sense, you just have to memorise them. In theory a phonetic alphabet should be easy, but in practice I feel even if it is easier than Chinese it's probably not that much easier.  
> **username_4**: Languages which didn't traditionally have a writing system, but have had one developed based on Latin letters, or some other script are an exception. NZ Maori is a good example, or even Hanyu Pinyin. If you know how to pronounce something, it's easy to spell and vice versa. There is no inconsistency or confusion.  
> **username_0**: @username_4 so where and how could I make a start?  
> **username_4**: @GyroGearloose depending on what your goal is, a course in Chinese language that includes or focuses on reading and writing. For me, what worked was character flashcards and lots of repetition. It doesn't have to be large amounts of time each day, as long as it is consistent over a long time. I didn't use a particularly systematic approach, I just made a point of learning whatever vocabulary I encountered that seemed like I would want to use in everyday life.  
> **username_3**: Main reasons why English spelling is seemingly nonsensical and reform is unlikely are: 1. Many conventions of English spelling are based on pronunciation from about 15th century, before some major phonological changed occurred (e.g. [Great Vowel Shift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift)). 2. No institution to govern English language (unlike [Académie Française](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française) for French language or [Real Academia Española](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy) for Spanish language). 3. Many divergent dialects of English language.  
> **username_7**: 嚴格的説, 笔画是组成文字的零件/工具. 笔画(stroke) --> 偏旁和部首(radical) --> 字(word). The Chinese radical is similar to the alphabet of English, for example, A(3-stroke alphabet) + C(1-stroke alphabet) + T(2-stroke alphabet) = ACT(word),  

---

### Answer by username_8 on 2024-04-23. Score: 2

You might like this Site:
<https://tmrc.tiec.tp.edu.tw/html/rsr20081105093736a6g/sixbook.htm>

It show how Chinese Words is created.

General speaking, there are exist 6 methods.

For beginner, try to focus on the first one, 象形 (Pictogram?)
it depends on the graphic of the object.

Or, you might try to google keyword: "[象形字典 象形文字查詢](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E8%B1%A1%E5%BD%A2%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8+%E8%B1%A1%E5%BD%A2%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97%E6%9F%A5%E8%A9%A2)"

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: 把“汉字六书”翻译成“六本书”，是错误的。  
> **username_0**: Dear username_8, when I ask how to compose strokes to make up characters, how could you even get the idea that I could even recognize the characters in your link, even less extract their meaning?  
> **username_8**: @username_6 抱歉，英文不好，不知道該怎樣翻譯比較正確  
> **username_8**: There's somebody create a online dictionary of Chinese words. You might interest about it: [Chinese Word Dictionary](https://www.vividict.com/Public/index/page/index/index.html) ...  Beware it only allow you to use it once per day .  
> **username_8**: @GyroGearloose Exactly , when we start to learn Chinese words, we have no ideal about this relactionship yet. After learning 5 or 6 years, we just study the relaction first time. But I think it's much fun for learning Chinese word with somebody. And you might easy to memorize it if you know how it be created.  
> **username_8**: For example, if you wanna to draw a Sun, you might draw a circle. And the original Sun's Chinese word is just a circle and one point in it, then for easier strokes , we wrote it '日' now. So it the moon '月' .  After you learn these 2 Chinese words, you will know after you saw one sun and one moon... it's another day, that's  the word 明 ← 日 + 月 , meaning tomorrow !   Is it much fun now .  
> **username_8**: Another example, if you have to draw a ground. You might draw a Horizontal line . And if you have to figure out that there's something above the ground, you might drip a dot above this line , like a grass grow out the ground. That's  what 上 word's meaning. and the same way, somethind underground !?  that's 下 meaning. After you recogzied these 2 words, you might know what's 卡 word meaning... Someone  STUCK on the ground, half body above the ground , and others underground... that's suck :(  
> **username_9**: @username_6 沒人把”六書”翻譯成”六本書”, “6 methods” 意思是”六種方法”, 不是”六本書”  
> **username_6**: @username_8 Thanks for your information. Your translation of "六書" to "6 methods" is correct. The mistake I mentioned on "六本書" means the website name "sixbook.htm".  
> **username_8**: @username_6 誤會了？  『translation of "六書" to "6 methods" 』的 是   username_9， and that website  is *not* created by me. I have no permission to fix it.  

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### Answer by username_6 on 2024-04-22. Score: 0

我觉得，这个问题是有中文答案的。也许很多专业术语不能准确翻译成英文。

首先，汉字并不是一开始就是这样子的。秦代的程邈发明隶书，为汉字定型，横平竖直，撇捺点勾，上下左右，外括里藏。这就是笔画和结构的来源。从意义方面，有汉字六书。这些都是中文小学语文教材的内容。

确切地说，汉字并不是由笔画组成，而是由偏旁部首组成。只有简单的字是由笔画组成。这些简单的字可以按照结构来组成复杂的字。

汉字的笔画一般来讲有八种，横竖撇捺，点提勾弯。还可以有更多的组合的笔画。横折竖，竖折横，竖勾，横勾，横折竖勾，竖折横折竖弯勾，等等。

记住写字的笔顺和写结构部件的顺序很重要。记住一个字是几画在查字典时有用。比如，山字是三画，而不是四画。


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