Generally, stroke order isn't too much of a problem and if you make stories that feature the primitives in the order that they're written then it helps. (I find this pretty difficult and generally I don't do it). However there are a few exceptions that cause me difficulty and I was wondering if anyone had developed any rules or methods for dealing with it.

For example the first two strokes of 左　and 右 are written in a different order for each character. Has anyone developed a rule for what you do with the 'by one's side' primitive? Do people always adjust their stories by creating two different images for each?

The enclosure primitives of cliff and stamp and others also seem to vary in a similar way. What have people done with these?

Just like Heisig describes, if the horizontal stroke comes second, have something in your story be on the right side of something else. If the diagonal stroke is second, put it on the left. Most of the time, it's on the right.

Does that work for you? It sounds to me that that relies on the sort of visual memory that Heisig's method was intended to avoid. A better way would be to make two distinct primitive images for each stroke order but what does everyone do and does it work? Or are people not too bothered about getting the stroke order slightly wrong?

How is that relying on visual memory?

I always wrote the horizontal one first... I never realized that was wrong.
For cliff, I write horizontal one first unless it is "parade", "turn into" or "march" primitive

I frequently include in my stories "by my right side" for one and "by my left side" for the other. I don't consider than "relying on visual memory". The only problem that I had with this strategy was thinking once that the primative was "left" instead of "by my left side".

i dont bother for this kind of detail.
its something you can easy add to an already familiar character if you did it wrong in the past and find out.
i feel you would be wasting your time on something that are the excotic exceptions on the rules becouse once you know the rules adding the few exceptions would take less time then the burden of making more complex stories.

[ファブリス]

The stroke order in 左 and 右 is easy because of how Heisig explains them in the book (going to the left or to the right). For other kanji, the *by one's side* primitive is drawn horizontal-vertical, according to Kanji Learners Dictionary. The same way as *cliff* then (you can think of *by one's side* as a "disjointed" cliff).

In an example like this, where it doesnt slow your writing down either way, I think it really only matters when you do calligraphy. In kaisho the ending of strokes are disconnected, but in gyousho and sousho the brush does not always leave the paper between strokes. In which case the order of strokes really matter for how it is going to look and how it is going to flow. In gyousho there are simplified versions of the primitives such as *rice field* or *jewel* that only work in a certain stroke order.

If you have 'by your left side' for one stroke order and 'by your right side' for the other stroke order then the only difference is right and left. You would have to visualise in your mind the elements of your story on either the right or left. This, to me, seems to be the same as visual memory. You would really need to add a bit more depth than this, such as the lady is on the left side of the man because that leaves his sword arm open to protect her. Or if you're right handed then you could envisage things on the right as being stronger in some way than things on the left. If you just have two elements in your story next to each other, which is on the right and which is on the left is pretty arbitrary and you would need to use visual memory to remember it unless you add a bit more depth or a reason.

Like I said, what do people do, does it work and do they check that they're getting it right when they review? ivoSF chooses not to spend too much time worrying about these exceptions, is this the most common viewpoint? I suspect it might be.

Personally, I think that the whole essence of RTK 1 is to learn how to right the characters. On the front it advertises that you can learn the meaning too but I think you're only getting a fraction of the deal on the meaning side of things. Maybe I'm being a perfectionist but as long as I'm dedicating time to learning the writing, I'd like to get the stroke order right all the time.

ファブリス Wrote:The stroke order in 左 and 右 is easy because of how Heisig explains them in the book (going to the left or to the right). For other kanji, the *by one's side* primitive is drawn horizontal-vertical, according to Kanji Learners Dictionary. The same way as *cliff* then (you can think of *by one's side* as a "disjointed" cliff).

I must admit that I didn't pick up on Heisig's hint the first time I read it. You also have to remember that the second stroke is the one that is longer and not the first. If 右 is the only exception to the rule then there's no problem and we don't need to adjust our stories. Just remember horizontal first and 右 is the only exception.

Is it true that horizontal is always first in every case? It's at times like these that I'd like to be able to search by primitive and check it out.

I've looked up a number of examples of the cliff primitive using Jim Breen's radical search and so far it seems to be just as Fabrice said. Horizontal first all the way. The by one's side primitive isn't a radical so I can't search for examples of that but it's nice to get the cliff one sorted out. I'll assume horizontal first for by one's side and if I find any exceptions (other than 右) when reviewing I'll let you know. Thanks Fabrice.

wrightak Wrote:If you have 'by your left side' for one stroke order and 'by your right side' for the other stroke order then the only difference is right and left. You would have to visualise in your mind the elements of your story on either the right or left. This, to me, seems to be the same as visual memory.

Visual memory means memorizing something that you've seen with your eyes. That's not what this is. If you want to distinguish left and right, think of right as virtuous and left as sinister. Maybe the people in your stories can have deformed left sides or something and then you remember whether something was on the deformed side or the glimmering side.

wrightak Wrote:If 右 is the only exception to the rule then there's no problem and we don't need to adjust our stories. Just remember horizontal first and 右 is the only exception.

Is it true that horizontal is always first in every case? It's at times like these that I'd like to be able to search by primitive and check it out.

I think you've got it backwards. 有　is written left stroke first, and the same with 布 so if anything, 左 is the exception, but I can't say that with complete certainty. I can say, that when one of these characters appears as part of a more complex character, the stroke order doesn't change. For the cliff radical 厂 (but not for this radical 戊) the horizontal stroke is always first and that has nothing to do with this discussion.

You can't always rely on which stroke is longer, but you should try to draw the longer one longer when you do write them. I think the "I'll figure it out later" idea is a bad policy. If you don't get it right from the beginning, it'll be a lot of extra effort to correct it later, and you might always be confused.


I just recently realized that there are anomalies with the 羊 primitive. I've gotta figure that out now.

JimmySeal Wrote:If you want to distinguish left and right, think of right as virtuous and left as sinister. Maybe the people in your stories can have deformed left sides or something and then you remember whether something was on the deformed side or the glimmering side.

This is another good idea. Like I said, left and right needs a bit more depth than just visualising something being on the left or right. Jimmy, do you use this method? If so, is it usually easy to incorporate into your stories and how effective is it?

JimmySeal Wrote:I think you've got it backwards. 有　is written left stroke first, and the same with 布 so if anything, 左 is the exception, but I can't say that with complete certainty.

I just came back to this forum because I realised the same thing. If a rule can't be established then I'm going to have to go back over my stories and adjust them using sinister/virtuous, strong/weak imagery. Lets figure this out and hopefully we can establish some simple rules which would be far less work.

JimmySeal Wrote:You can't always rely on which stroke is longer, but you should try to draw the longer one longer when you do write them.

I think that the longer one is always written second. (is this true?) If you can figure out which one is second then you know to draw that one longer. Conversely, if you know which is one is longer then you know the order. With 左 and 右, the longer stroke for 左 drifts to the left and the longer stroke for 右 goes to the right. Like I said, I missed this when I read what Heisig said the first time.

JimmySeal Wrote:I think the "I'll figure it out later" idea is a bad policy. If you don't get it right from the beginning, it'll be a lot of extra effort to correct it later, and you might always be confused.

Definitely. I'm on 1700 kanji right now and I think I should have got this sorted out earlier.

JimmySeal Wrote:I just recently realized that there are anomalies with the 羊 primitive. I've gotta figure that out now.

I can't find any kanji that feature both the sheep primitive and the by one's side primitive. Which kanji are you thinking of?

wrightak Wrote:This is another good idea. Like I said, left and right needs a bit more depth than just visualising something being on the left or right. Jimmy, do you use this method? If so, is it usually easy to incorporate into your stories and how effective is it?

For 有 I remember that the meat (to ward off spirits) is hanging on the right side, which is the pure side. For 布 I picture a maid with a towel hanging at her right hip, and that does the trick. I still can't remember any besides 左 in which the left stroke is drawn second so that helps. The second stroke should be longer, but some typefaces vary and the left stroke in 左 doesn't always reach to the bottom, though it's supposed to, so you can't tell just by looking at a character which stroke is drawn first and second.

wrightak Wrote:I can't find any kanji that feature both the sheep primitive and the by one's side primitive. Which kanji are you thinking of?

I meant that with 羊 sometimes the vertical stroke is the 6th stroke and sometimes it's the 4th stroke. It seems that you draw all the horizontal strokes first when the vertical stroke extends past the bottom (鮮, 善, 様), and draw the vertical stroke early when it's cut off at the bottom (差, 義, 窯, 養).

My wife's explanation is that for 左 we write the horizontal stroke first and vertical second because the following stroke is horizontal. But for 右 it's vertical first followed by horizontal because the next stroke is vertical. This seems to hold up over other kanji like 有 vertical; horizontal; vertical. And the 'linen' kanji (don't know it's reading!). Her point was, if I get confused about stroke order, particularly when there are both vertical and horizontal lines involved, writing 2 vertical or 2 horizontal strokes should give me a warning that the order is possibly not correct. There are probably examples that contradict what she says but she was speaking generally.

That is a gem of information, please thank your wife. When reviewing, I sometimes check the stroke order so I'll see how well it holds up.

By the way, if you're in Japan, take a look at your washing machine. It probably has a setting called 毛布 (もうふ), for blankets. Another reading is ぬの.

It's also the first character in 布団 (futon).

synewave Wrote:My wife's explanation is that for 左 we write the horizontal stroke first and vertical second because the following stroke is horizontal. But for 右 it's vertical first followed by horizontal because the next stroke is vertical. This seems to hold up over other kanji like 有 vertical; horizontal; vertical. And the 'linen' kanji (don't know it's reading!). Her point was, if I get confused about stroke order, particularly when there are both vertical and horizontal lines involved, writing 2 vertical or 2 horizontal strokes should give me a warning that the order is possibly not correct. There are probably examples that contradict what she says but she was speaking generally.

That's really helpful. I could never sort it out before. I looked up the stroke order for some kanji. The rule seems to apply when the lower primitive touches/starts at the vertical line or the combination "by ones side"+"elbow" ("by my side" written horizontal-vertical) is an exception (the only I found).

I just realized today that 友 also has that primitive and it's horizontal stroke first, so to sum up:

Horizontal first: 左　友
Vertical first: 右 布 有

All of these support the claim made by synewave('s wife).

Glad to hear the suggestion might have helped.

Thanks for telling me about the reading of 布. When I went home yesterday I took a look at the washing machine and sure enough 毛布 was there. Can't believe I didn't know it was one of the characters in 布団! Cheers!

Hand - Linen (cloth). Is that gentle cycle or something?

I have Kodansha's Kanji Learner's Dictionary, but y'know there's this thing you mentioned about the direction of the stroke. Sure, it's first or second, but which end of the stroke is the beginning, and which end of the stroke is the ending? Lots of kanji dictionaries can show the order, but not the direction. I've found a few animated stroke order diagrams online, but they're a bit clunky. What do you use to know that sort of thing? For example, the first and third strokes of "compare" 比 are written right to left.

手布? I don't think that's a word.

雄 has that "by the side" primitive and it has the horizontal stroke first. The third stroke starts off essentially vertically so this all but disproves the theory set forward by synewave. Sorry!


@CharleyGarret KanjiGym Light, made by Vittorio Klostermann Verlag and James Heisig is not very effective as a flash card program, but someone put a lot of work into stroke animations for all 2042 kanji, so you can give that a try. The stroke directions usually make sense and once you learn them once they usually stick.

Thanks! I'll give that a look.

scottamus > 毛布 (もうふ) fur + linen, means 'blanket'. So if you fancy washing a blanket, that's the option to pick! Thanks to wrightak for pointing that out!

JimmySeal > Like I was saying, my wife was talking generally. I'm only up to frame 577 and the 'rule' is holding up okay so far. It it has colapsed by the end of RTK1...such is life!

CharleyGarrett > "(T)he first and third strokes of "compare" 比 are written right to left. What do you use to know that sort of thing?" - Good question. So far I've just been memorizing these kind of details. Is there a better way? Other things that cause me problems are the first stroke in 天 as in, is it a long left to right first stroke (FRAME 523, silkworm) or the shorter right to left stroke (FRAME 429, bridge). Also the 月 character is a bit confusing. As in to flick or not to flick the first stroke...suggestions welcome!!

p.s. How do you quote what others have said so that you get those lovely big speech marks?

Cheers,