I just noticed something interesting about a few kanjis sharing a same primitive.

専(46), 博(47), and 薄(227)

Each of them has the same primitive (the acupuncturist) but every time the stroke order seems to be a bit different..

Has anyone noticed this problem before? Do the later characters have yet new exotic stroke orders and have you come up with any trick to remember the right order?

I don't see any problems. The stroke order is the same for all 3 of them(according to the Taka Stroke Order Diagrams).

As for "killer" kanji, check out this Chinese character:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...3%A1ng.svg

I can't imagine what the stroke order is like or even what it means.

Well.. According to Heisigh`s book the stroke order changes a bit. Also in the two latter instances when to put in the dot in the left top corner changes..

Maybe He is wrong.. Taka stroke order diagram..?

As for the killer kanjis.. It`s a bit late here and I didn`t bother to think of anything better.. ^^;

The repeating primitive should always be written the same way in 9 strokes. It's also got the keyword 'speciality'. No.47 is 'Dr.' and No. 227 is 'dilute'.

The acupuncturist primitive comes from removing the needle on the left in 'Dr.'. It is almost the same as 'speciality' but with the addition of the 'drop' at the top. The drop is written last and so doesn't affect the writing of 'speciality'.

Oh, and chamcham, my computer doesn't know what a *.svg file is so I can't see the link

chamcham Wrote:As for "killer" kanji, check out this Chinese character:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...3%A1ng.svg

I can't imagine what the stroke order is like or even what it means.

That's insane, is that the highest stroke count for any Chinese character?

It is the kanji for some kind of noodle. Imagine asking thw waiter for that by writing it down.

From time to time I notice differences in stroke order between Heisig's diagrams and kanji dictionaries. I find dictionaries agree with each other, so I'd recommend you follow those. I guess stroke order isn't Heisig's 専.

There's a .pdf flying around out that contains all the errata in the book, although I believe they did not correct this issue, if there is one.

.svg's are a vector image file type, which is actually quite good for Chinese characters especially one as complicated as the one linked. I believe Firefox and Opera will deal with them naturally.

the great part about SVG files, in addition to being a vector file type, is that strokes can be stored as paths(for animation purposes) and you can even stroke groups of strokes. Since they're a vector type you can increase font-size infinitely without pixelation.

I'd love to see a project started for inputting Jouyou kanji in SVG format.
AFAIK, an SVG file of Jouyou Kanji doesn't exist.

I wouldn't trust Heisig's stoke order diagrams - there are a number of mistakes. There is an errata pdf around if you google it. Generally, I'd check more established dictionaries to get the right answer.

It's also possible that there could be competing views on stroke order.
Especially when japan has some many different school of shodou.

I would actually prefer to use the stroke order diagrams in the Kanji
Kentei Shiken books, since it's supposedly a test of Kanji ability for native
speakers and has been researched by their committee a million times over.
Although, I guess it's still possible for anyone to make a mistake.

It's widely known that RTK 3d & 4th ed. are littered with mistakes. I don't think this is a case of two separate-yet-legitimate stroke orders.

You can download the errata PDFs here:
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publ...anji_1.htm

Probably good to download both PDFs because it seems like the "cumulative" errata are missing a lot of fixes that the other one has.

I checked them against my dictionary. 専 and 博 both have identical stroke patterns in the dictionary and in RtK, but 薄 does not -- the dictionary shows the "drop" near the upper right as the 13th stroke, before putting in the 寸 below.

What does RTK show for 薄? The drop should be drawn before the 寸 in both 博 and 薄.

JimmySeal Wrote:What does RTK show for 薄? The drop should be drawn before the 寸 in both 博 and 薄.

The printing I have (incorrectly) gives the drop as the last stroke in 薄.

Yeah. My fourth edition, first printing tells me to draw it last too. Thats what confused me in the first place..
Well.. Its good to know this too. I'll start checking the errata file on each frame from now on..

alantin Wrote:Yeah. My fourth edition, first printing tells me to draw it last too. Thats what confused me in the first place..
Well.. Its good to know this too. I'll start checking the errata file on each frame from now on..

Well you might save yourself some time and effort by just going through the errata file and marking the corrections in your book ahead of time

This particular example isn't in the errata, though. Looks like you found a new error! It'll be interesting to see if it's still in the upcoming new edition.

My dictionary also shows the drop being drawn before the 'glue' primitive at the bottom in both cases.

I can forgive that one though, in comparison to #845 - 失 (Lose) where he shows it as being the husband followed by the drop. This seemed strange to me after all the other similar ones (cow, horse, crimson etc) but I took it as an exception. It was only later when I found the erata file did I discover that my gut instinct was correct and it should be the drop, followed by husband.

I guess proof-reading a book like this must be hard though. The temptation to just skim over the stroke diagrams must be huge!

A bit offtopic but is there an irc-channel for "reviewing the kanji" community? That might be a good place to quicly ask something and stuff..

alantin Wrote:I just noticed something interesting about a few kanjis sharing a same primitive.

?(46), ?(47), and ?(227)

Each of them has the same primitive (the acupuncturist) but every time the stroke order seems to be a bit different..

Incidentally, this primitive is also part of the Last Emperor's name: Pu Yi...

chamcham Wrote:As for "killer" kanji, check out this Chinese character:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...3%A1ng.svg

I can't imagine what the stroke order is like or even what it means.

I think this one has been created artificially and is not in use.

alantin Wrote:A bit offtopic but is there an irc-channel for "reviewing the kanji" community? That might be a good place to quicly ask something and stuff..

I thought irc died a death like 10 years ago? Good to know it's still alive.

It is still very alive! Maybe just the network you used to use died off.. =P

Well. If there is no channel yet, maybe we should make one. Thought I don`t know 厘 about how to set a bot for a channel or anything.. I just idle! ^^;

Serge Wrote:

chamcham Wrote:As for "killer" kanji, check out this Chinese character:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...3%A1ng.svg

I can't imagine what the stroke order is like or even what it means.

I think this one has been created artificially and is not in use.

Photo taken in Xi'an