All Chinese characters are built up by basic strokes. The simplest ones have
only one stroke while the most complex ones can have more than 60 strokes. The number of strokes per character for most characters is
between 3 and 30. There are only about 30 basic strokes.
When you write a Chinese character stroke-by-stroke, a stroke is a
continuous draw without lifting your pen/pencil.
Usually strokes are meaningless, and they are only basic parts of radicals and
then characters.
It is very important to understand and follow the rules of stroke orders when
you write Chinese Characters. Incorrectly ordered or written strokes can
produce a visually unappealing or, occasionally, incorrect characters.
Tips: For more information about Strokes,
see the embedded lessons.