I usually go by the Jisho.org stroke order pictures.

Even Heisig makes an occasional mistake ^^'. If I get this right 脊 was only recently introduced into the Joyo Kanji list, so it was not in the original book. That being said, starting with the roof feels much more natural to me.

It's been a while since I went through RTK, but IIRC he explained the stroke order for more unusual ones. He was probably told that this was the correct stroke order and also thought it was weird and worth a mention.

What about 瓶?  Is the last stroke the one at the very bottom?  Or the one inside the "box"? 

The stoke order diagrams from KanjiCafe show that the last stroke is the one inside the "box", but the stroke order diagram from KanjiSVG shows the last stroke as the one at the very bottom.

Kakijun.jp shows the last stroke as the one inside the "box".  Koujien (広辞苑第六版) shows the last stroke as the one at the very bottom.

The more important question is, "Is there an "official" source for stroke order?"  What standards does the 漢検 go by?  (I'm thinking JimmySeal or erlog would know this...)

toshiromiballza wrote:

KanjiVG has a lot of mistakes. So does KanjiCafe. Kakijun.jp has some mistakes as well, but only for non-joyo kanji I'd say.

The order shown by KanjiCafe and Kakijun.jp is correct. When different sources show different stroke orders, your best bet is to go with Kakijun.jp.

So that's what I was thinking, too.  But it threw me off that Koujien would be different from Kakijun.jp.  I would think that Koujien would be a more official source than Kakijun.jp.

But really, I'm wondering about how it's decided on the 漢検 test.  I should probably ask in that 漢検 thread...

Heh, I literally added this character today and ran into the same question. But then just thought, meh, I get the first two of 左 and 右 mixed up all the time and I doubt anyone will care. Arguably it matters even less for 脊, since it doesn't affect the end result.

Inny Jan wrote:

Mnemonic: Only right (右) has the right stroke order for the posses.

And now the only thing you need to remember is the “right stroke order for the posses”, which is first stroke down.

A better mnemonic is to just remember that alternating horizontal and vertical strokes is a common stroke order pattern. If you think about the stroke order for 工 and 口, and then work backwards from there then it will always lead you to the correct stroke order. The stroke order of those primitives is the reason the stroke orders for 左 and 右 are different.

Once I found that I out I never forgot it since it seemed so logical. That said, outside of a weird test like Kanken it really doesn't matter so much. Everyone has their own weird stroke order quirks. You should pay attention to it at the beginning to make sure your handwriting flows properly, but I would caution people not to have a slavish devotion to it for overly complex or fairly rare kanji.

The stroke order for the character in the topic falls into that category where I wouldn't really bother with learning the "official" stroke order for it. I can tell you for sure Japanese people never do unless they start getting into calligraphy. I always write it with the 二's first, but I can understand why people would want to do the roof first in order to make drawing it with the proper proportions easier.

partner55083777 wrote:

The more important question is, "Is there an "official" source for stroke order?"  What standards does the 漢検 go by?  (I'm thinking JimmySeal or erlog would know this...)

The official source for anything related to KanKen are the official Kanken Foundation-produced learning materials. They have their own reference book, and the test materials are rooted in that. This includes which forms of radicals they'll accept as test answers, stroke order, which homophonic kanji map to which situations, which kanji readings are appropriate for which level of the test.

There's a standard spiel at the beginning of all the KanKen textbooks that has examples of how they expect you to write the kanji on the test along with examples of things that are correct, but considered very non-standard.

I believe all the KanKen Foundation stuff is produced in very close accordance with the 文部科学省 teaching standards. Stroke order is only tested on KanKen for 10級-5級 which covers the 1006 教育 kanji. Aside from those 1,006 kanji nobody seems to really care about stroke order aside from pedants or people into calligraphy.

Last edited by erlog (2013 January 12, 7:41 pm)

erlog wrote:

nobody seems to really care about stroke order aside from pedants or people into calligraphy.

I actually have a question regarding that. The difference in stroke order seems relevant to me once quick writing comes into play. I can feel myself slowing down if I get the stroke order wrong for 右＆左 for example. The small pause done in the middle of it is a good sign that I messed them up. Same goes for the roof and 2s in this one. Also, once you start writing quickly, doesn't the stroke order count? Aside from feeling weird, I assume that having a familiar shaped scribble makes reading hand-written kanjis much easier.

erlog, do you have any tips for memorizing the stroke order for 減?

Judging by the stategy posted above, I assumed it would be 水編, then the left-to-right stroke at the top of Heisig's "Cliff" primitive, and finally the top to bottom stroke for the "Cliff".  Then, the next stroke would be left to right, and the next stroke would be top to bottom.  It would be all nice.

However, looking it up in a dictionary, it looks like the right-to-left and top-to-bottom strokes are actually reversed.  Is there something else that is coming in to play here?  Or is this just something that I'll have to memorize?

Cliff 厂 is written with the horizontal stroke first. But to get the correct stroke order for characters like 成, 減, 茂, 威 etc., it's better to think of them as containing 丿+ 戈 i.e. draw the 丿 first. If there is anything contained in the space between 丿and 戈 (e.g. 威 has 一 and 女) then that gets written immediately after the horizontal stroke of 戈.

Re the earlier questions, Kanken prep books for level 2 show 脊 stroke order as: 人, left =, right =, 月.
And 瓶 has the 丶last.
As Erlog mentioned above though, this isn't too important and the Kanken only tests stroke order up to level 5.