So Heisig says 4 strokes for 牙.
I clearly see 5 in printed versions... This site says it's 5 strokes, and another site says 4 strokes, and yet another site says 4 OR 5 strokes...
Here is the last site:
http://tangorin.com/kanji?k=%E7%89%99

What is it??

Thanks!

-Mesqueeb

I also noticed this, and decided to just write it however I felt at the time. It took me a while to come to my own opinion that remembering if its 4 in some kanjis and 5 in others is a waste of time and not even important as Heisig makes it sound... especially when there are contradictory answers on the topic.

I guess it can be done in both ways. I usually do 5. Here it says it's 4 but the animation shows 5... I'd rather trust the animation, if I were to choose.

Why the insistence that there's only 1 way? Why not just accept what those sites are saying and know that it can be written with 4 or 5 strokes?

wccrawford Wrote:Why the insistence that there's only 1 way? Why not just accept what those sites are saying and know that it can be written with 4 or 5 strokes?

This. Stroke orders is just a guide anyway. As long as you're writing the kanji correctly, stroke order is less important. I mean if you're into calligraphy and stuff like that, it WILL matter because it's almost impossible to write the kanji correctly with the wrong stroke order, but for normal writing it matters less how you wrote the strokes, it matters more that it looks like it should and is readable. If you write 牙 so it looks right, who cares if you did it in 4 or 5 strokes.

I think I usually do this one as 5; in fact I wasn't sure how you'd write it in four strokes, but the WWWJDIC SOD animation shows the 4 version.

I think stroke order is important, and in some places Heisig's stroke counts are just wrong, so it's not a silly question. But in the handful of cases like this where there are several popular variants you might as well pick whichever you like.

Looks pretty evident that it's 4. Where's everyone getting 5?

In the second stroke (the one that looks like an "L") in the 4-version, it can be broken into two strokes: a down-stroke and then a horizontal stroke (that sticks out on the left), ending up with a total of 5-strokes. FWIW, I always write this one in 5-strokes.

Tobberoth Wrote:...Stroke orders is just a guide anyway. As long as you're writing the kanji correctly, stroke order is less important....

This comment is not exactly accurate.

Actually, in elementary school, many teachers, when looking at a pupil's handwritten result, can detect if a stroke has been done out-of-order or in-the-wrong-direction. You actually get marked down for this. You get marked down for writing characters out of proportion or missing hooks (hane), etc... This is true in Japanese and in Chinese schools.

Don't limit yourself, just because Japanese are impressed that you can write Kanji at all - try to do it as well as it can be done.

I always write it with 5 strokes, similar to how the sunglasses primitive is written. Or the kanji for Year 年　if you dont know what I am talking about.

I didn't see if someone mentioned this or not yet, but stroke number could be important for if you wanted to look the kanji up with a dictionary. Suppose you could look at 5 and if it's not there go to 4, but yeah.

kfmfe04 Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:...Stroke orders is just a guide anyway. As long as you're writing the kanji correctly, stroke order is less important....

This comment is not exactly accurate.

Actually, in elementary school, many teachers, when looking at a pupil's handwritten result, can detect if a stroke has been done out-of-order or in-the-wrong-direction. You actually get marked down for this. You get marked down for writing characters out of proportion or missing hooks (hane), etc... This is true in Japanese and in Chinese schools.

Don't limit yourself, just because Japanese are impressed that you can write Kanji at all - try to do it as well as it can be done.

The point is that there is a system to how kanji are written, thinking every single kanji has a unique stroke order which needs to be learned is just making it very difficult for oneself. If one realizes the system and gets used to it, one can learn to guess the proper stroke order with amazing accuracy, especially if it's coupled with knowledge of how to properly write the common bushu. I'd say that if someone shows me a kanji, I have a 95% or so chance of simply guessing the correct stroke order since I know the basic principles. In the rest of the cases, the kanji usually have several accepted ways of being written and the one I guessed is still acceptable (like 牙). In consider the few kanji which remain to be a risk worth taking so as to not have to study individual stroke orders for every kanji I see.

I originally thought it was just a font thing. If the second stroke looked like an L then it would written with a single stroke and be 4. But if it was like an upside down T it would have to be 5. If anyone cares, Henshall reckons it's 5 and gives 芽 as 8 strokes instead of 7.　Here's his description of the character:

Every time I've asked a Japanese person about stroke order they've been completely unhelpful. They start second guessnig themselves, then they start consulting other people, and everyone has a different idea. They look it up in a dictionary, but the dictionary is unhelpful. Just don't worry about it for the ambiguous ones.

The basic flow is what stays with Japanese people. They mostly goes with what feels right to them after a while. No one focuses on every single character individually.

Anyway the Japanese themselves distort the stroke order/number in informal writing, sometimes. Have you ever seen how they make the 門 radical using only 2 strokes? It's really ugly (buy handy).

Thanks guys! I'll just go with 5 since it is the more pretty way in my opinion. ^^

to NAC EST! Please show me, I wanne know! xD

-Mesqueeb

I think there's a danger of conflating two issues here, namely
1) Japanese people often join strokes together, or leave some out, or write them in a different order, or otherwise simplify kanji (true fact)
2) It's okay to leave out strokes or write them in a different order, just as long as it looks pretty close (incorrect conclusion)
The truth is, it's really hard to make general statements about which ways of writing a kanji are valid; two completely different-looking scribbles might be instantly understood by a Japanese person as being identical, whereas two versions that look almost identical to a foreigner might look hopelessly mangled to a Japanese. Eventually I guess you can get a feel for what is okay, but you pretty much have to learn on a kanji-by-kanji basis. And there's often a particular way of writing these alternate forms; for example, many people write 子 in one long cursive stroke, but there's a bit of an art to it -- it's not hard to write, but if you were just told "join the 3 strokes into one long stroke," you'd probably come up with something pretty hideous, from a native's point of view.
nac_est, I know the short form you're talking about (and don't find it ugly) but I guess I've never looked closely at it -- surely it's written with 3 strokes, not 2...?

Are you both not confusing it with 门, the simplified hanzi? It's written with 3 strokes.

Yeah, I guess it comes from that form. I'm thinking of this:
間 ->

from:
ja.wiktionary.org

Ah yes. That looks quite horrible IMO (though I think 门 looks great).

I find that simplified hanzi has a certain style to them. They have been simplified in an artful way. The example you posted looks more like a sloppy way of writing something quickly.

You're right; it does look horrible printed, but handwritten it's not too bad. Well, maybe I'm just mentally comparing it to my own handwritten 門s, which are generally pretty ugly themselves.

Here it is, handwritten. Finding it was tricky but here it is. Actually yeah, it's 3 strokes (at least in this case).


The first time I saw it I thought it was a new kanji or something like that...

Haha! That's hilarious I think!

All my japanese friends always complain they can't read my english handwriting, but I swear, their is sooo much more unreadable, especially hiragana is impossible for me to figure out. xD

It is true though, every time I ask someone here for Kanji stroke order or count they have no clue, and are guessing from there.
I guess using Heisig you have certain benefits to Kanji that Japanese don't have, but then again, I guess Japanese people have a feeling of the language which is a benefit that foreigners might never accomplish and which might be much more valuable than the knowledge offered with Heisig.
I still love having completed Heisig though! ^^

This has been an interesting topic imo.

-Mesqueeb

This looks like a fine example of how the real-world is different from what you learn in school.

In certain contexts (restaurants, for example), short-hand/simplified Kanji or notation may be used. If all the people involved agree on the notation, then it works great.

I just looked it up in the kanji dictionary on my casio elec. dic. and it says only 5. I also peeked in a kanji hitsujun handbook and it shows 5. I tried to upload a picture but I forgot my ketai today. rawr! I'll ask my calligraphy teacher, but my guess is there's a cursive/other form that's widely used that is 4 strokes, eh?

Stroke order is on my wish list for kanji.koohi

It would be soooooo nice.