I thought the order of the strokes of Chinese characters were easy-
A horizontal stroke before a vertical one;
A left-falling one before a right-falling one:
Top-down; Left-right; out-in…
You know, elementary school stuff.
Until one day my elementary-schooler daughter gave me a test which her teacher gave her class.
Something like this:
My score was 50/100.
Oh My Gosh I suck at Grade two stuff!
How can I accept such a sad fact?!
So I gave this test to my coworkers (who are native Chinese in their 30s and 40s).
I got so much relieved that they didn’t do better than me…
You see, to “write the strokes in right order” is such a tough mission to native Chinese adults who use this language 24/365.
Now I imagine I was a non-native learner who struggles to write down these drawing-like Chinese characters. I would try, and try, and try hard to draw them alike. God, Santa Claus and Alibaba, please save me from this Chinese characters’ maze…
Now you tell me it is necessary to not only write them alike, but also in a right order??? You tell me it is necessary to write Chinese more right than average Chinese???
…
Ok never mind. I’ll just focus on hanyu pinyin (the alphabet version of Chinese language)…
So “is it necessary to learn to write the strokes in the right order”?
I guess it depends on the purpose one learns Chinese characters.
Are you a researcher of Chinese characters? Do you desire to be an expert of Chinese calligraphy? Do you want to win some Chinese character handwriting contests? Or do you just want to use this language like me and my Chinese coworkers do?
I agree with other answers here that writing the strokes in a right order would fasten the writing speed and help you be able to write some beautiful cursive. (Thanks! I learned much from these answers!)
Still I think the priority of learning varies by the purpose and the stage of learning. With limited time and energy, maybe most learners don’t need to be too hard on themselves.
Interestingly, one of my coworkers found her elementary school Chinese text book (30 years ago) and found out the “right order” of strokes changed a lot from then. Lots of right orders by current standard would be wrong 30 years ago.
My Japanese coworkers who are kanji (the Japanese version of Chinese characters) natives had fun too from attending this write-it-in-right-order test. And surprisingly they found out the “right or wrong” standard in Chinese and in Japanese are pretty different.
I guess in this field, “right or wrong” can be controversial and fluid.
“But Nell, are you just trying to justify your shitty Chinese handwriting skills?”
Well, errr… ANYWAY, enjoy.
(All images are from the internet.)