In our previous lessons on how to write Chinese characters we taught you the two fundamental rules for drawing Chinese characters. Draw them from left to right and top to bottom. Today we add a third rule of thumb that is just as easy to remember:

• 从外到内：月、风、内、肉、用、周、网、同、义、床、厅、闲、闭、问、闻、闯、病、疼、房、局、句、勾、勺

As in the list above, Chinese has many characters with a box-like structure. It is common to run into characters with strokes or radicals drawn inside spaces created by other strokes or radicals. A good example is the character 闲, which has the 木 radical drawn inside the 门 radical. The general rule of thumb in these cases is to draw our exterior casing first, and then fill in the interior.

There are a few exceptions to this rule that we will cover in later lessons. But generally speaking, if you can keep these three rules in mind you are already capable of correctly writing about 70 percent of the Chinese characters out there. So click through to the Writing section of this lesson and start practicing. Our Writing Pad will correct any mistakes you make and help you internalize proper stroke order. It is also a lot of fun. Once you know the proper stroke order print out a copy of our hanzi writing sheets for practice on the go and incorporate character writing into your regular study program. Good luck and happy writing!