Write it in the right order.
Type a character, a word, or pinyin. Watch the strokes animate in the correct sequence, read the pinyin and meaning, then trace it yourself.
Watch the full sequence first
Press Play to see every stroke drawn in order. The starting point, direction and the order of the strokes matter far more than artistic flourish.
Break it down stroke by stroke
Use the grey step thumbnails to isolate a single stroke. Complex characters become manageable once you see where each stroke begins.
Then write it yourself
Press Write it and draw the character with your mouse or finger. The tool corrects you the moment a stroke goes the wrong way.
Practise on paper, not just on screen
Turn any character into a printable worksheet with 田字格 grids, stroke-order breakdown and tracing guides.
Questions
Why does stroke order matter?
Stroke order is what keeps handwriting legible and quick. Following it makes characters easier to remember, produces better proportions, and is essential if you ever want to read cursive or handwritten Chinese.
How many characters are covered?
The site ships with stroke-order data for 9,574 characters — effectively every character you will meet in modern Chinese. A handful of extremely rare characters have no stroke data and show a plain glyph instead.
Can I search in pinyin?
Yes. Type pinyin such as xie or ni hao (tones optional) and pick from the suggestions, or paste Chinese characters directly.
Where does the stroke data come from?
Stroke shapes and medians come from the Make Me a Hanzi project, based on Arphic's open-source fonts. Definitions come from the same project's dictionary.