Stroke order for Kanji and Kana question

[Alcyone]

I'm getting confused about stroke order of some kana and kanji. When I was taking Japanese classes Sensei drilled us to write top to bottom left to right. I'm studying on my own now.

For ヒ one of my katakana books shows the horizontal stroke starting at the right and slanting slightly down to the left, then the bended stroke. Another book and some online animations show the bended stroke first then the horizontal line going left-to-right or right-to-left with or without the slant. Which is correct? What about ナ?

Same question with some Kanji that seem to break Sensei's top to bottom then left to right starting point rule. Example, my Kanji book stroke order for 七, 九, and 10 (can't find the key-combo for the Kanji) breaks this rule. 七 and 10 start with the horizontal stroke then the bended/vertical strokes. 九 shows the vertical stroke first then the horizontal bending one. So 七 and 10 are left to right top to bottom, and 九 is top to bottom left to right.

Other examples from the same book 水 starts with the vertical (top), 土 starts with the upper horizontal (left), 女 starts with the bended vertical (top).

My Kanji book is Basic Kanji published by Bonjjinsha and I recently have been skimming part of Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.

Is there some nuance to applying the top-down-left-right rule?

Thanks.

[Tom]

Maybe the nuance is that radicals have special stroke orders? I've noticed that in kanji with many parts, on the whole the order is top-down, left-right, but strokes in a single radical don't always follow this pattern. I don't know enough about stroke order to say this definitively, but it seems to be the case.

[Psy]

Okey-doke. I can see where you're getting confused here. For the kana, there do exist variations, but the standard way to draw ヒ is the straight line from LEFT-to-RIGHT, then the L shape from top-to-bottom. The confusing thing is that for similar elements in kanji (旨, 能), they are drawn the way you describe them. The proper way for ナ is the horizontal line first, LEFT-to-RIGHT.

The confusion with kanji is that, while in general the stroke order follows the rules of top-to-bottom, left-to-right, there are a lot of other intricate rules and a bunch of exceptions. I'll run through each of the characters you listed individually:

七: 7. Written the standard way. When vertical and horizontal intersect, horizontal is drawn first.

九: 9. This is one of the oddball characters. The vertical stroke comes first, then the inverted-L-plus-hook. I'm not sure the reasoning behind this, but it might be because similar strokes (such as 凡, 風) are not drawn first.

十: 10. Drawn the standard way-- horizontal then vertical intersect.

水: Water. The rule for characters like this (永, 承, 蒸, 兆, the left part of 怖... 火 is an exception!) is that the middle line is drawn first, followed by the left then right sides. You'll find that a balanced looking kanji is easier to draw this way.

土: Earth. This is drawn the standard way. (see above.)

女: Woman. This is another one of those weird exceptions. One rule states that when there is a stroke that penetrates the entire character, it comes last. For instance, the vertical stroke in 車 and the horizontal one in 母 come last. I'm assuming the reason 女 is written this way is because of this. At any rate, think of it as an exception, learn it, and then don't worry about it.

勉強を楽しんで！ (benkyou wo tanoshinde!)

[Alcyone]

どうもありがとございました Tomさん and Psyさん!

Psyさん, that clears up a lot of the confusion. I don't recall 先生 talking about any irregular Kanji. All of those example Kanji are in the first few chapters of my book. Not knowing there were exceptions made me start to wonder how I was going wrong. Whew!

Can you tell me how you got the character for 10? (I'm on a Mac so maybe it won't work the same way but this Kanji has me stumped on what to type.)

[Psy]

Hello then, fellow mac user! There are a number of ways to get it: typing 10, じゅう (juu), or とお (too) should do it for you.

[Alcyone]

どうもありがと again Psyさん!

I've been typing kana in my Mac for a while but picking out the kanji is almost as tricky as learning to write them.