Strokes

Although Chinese characters are based on pictures, the pictures are no longer as free-form as paintings. In other words, originally, people were free to draw the pictures as personal works of art.

Now, however, the characters have long since become standardized into a fixed set of allowed markings, known as strokes. Characters have become standardized and simplified. This makes characters less free-form, and makes them simpler to reproduce and simpler to learn.

It can also make it more difficult to recognize the original pictures.

Let us learn the various strokes that are used to represent Chinese characters. Once we know the strokes, we will find it simpler to recognize the original pictures, and we will find it simpler to recall how to write the characters later.

Strokes are based on the structure of the human body.