China has now switched to a simplified character writing system. But that doesn’t make it any easier at first. Without knowing the characters, you won’t get very far in learning Chinese. That’s why we start learning how to write characters from the very first lessons. To begin with, you need to learn the rules of character writing, then you will do automatically, without thinking about writing a character.
Rules for writing hieroglyphs:
- The character is written from top to bottom.
- The character is written from left to right.
- Horizontal lines are written first, then vertical and hinged lines. The lower horizontal line, if it does not intersect, is written after the vertical line.
- The hinged left is written first, then the hinged right.
- The features that make up the outer outline of the sign are written first, then the features within it, the feature that closes the outline at the bottom is written last.
- The vertical one in the center is written first, if it is not intersected by the horizontal one, then the side lines.
- The dot on the right is written last.
There are special dictionaries where you can see the sequence of writing hieroglyphs, but it is better to memorize the rules so you don’t have to look in dictionaries every time. Good luck in writing hieroglyphs!