This is the number of strokes (a stroke is defined as a continuous and uninterrupted line or curve, written without the pen or brush ever leaving the paper) used to write the kanji character. All kanji in KanjiLearn have a stroke count.
The stroke count of a kanji is useful because it helps writting the character properly.
For example 
which means a mouth,
has a shape which is could be written by novices as a square, with only one stroke (one
continous pen stroke), but this is wrong. The stroke count for is 3, denoting that it has to be written with 3 strokes.
Learning how to write a character (stroke count and stroke order) is very important
(but Kanjilearn has unfortunately no information on stroke order) for several reasons.
First, it is the only way to produce beautiful looking kanji, whether using a pen or a
brush. Second, writing recognition computer devices will NOT recognize kanji that are not
written in the correct order, or without the correct stroke count. Such devices, are
widely available in Japan and other countries and the only way to rapidely lookup kanji
that you don't know. Third, for those interested in calligraphy (
,
or the way of writing in Japanese), I strongly recommend that you put lots of
emphasize on proper writing of kanji, as fixing your writing later will be really hard.
Fourth, it is a great way to impress your Japanese friends, who don't always remember the
proper way of writing kanji (ask a Japanese friend to write 
which means to fly; there is a good chance he/she will write
it improperly).
The repartition of stroke numbers (number of kanji in Y-axis for each stroke count in X-axis) is as follow:
However, there are a some kanji which stroke count is disputed. These kanji are usually those which have been recently simplified, that are very close (but a bit different) from their Chinese version or that have a different stroke count depending on whether it is written with a pen, a brush or a font. Listed below are the kanji radicals where there are differing approaches to the stroke counting in various references.
 | The top part of  (i.e. above the  part), which is called       and sometimes
represented (for historical reasons) as  is always counted as 3 strokes. It is sometimes counted as 4 in other
books. |
| The left and bottom part of  (i.e.
excluding the  part), which is called     and sometimes represented (for historical reasons) as  is always counted as 3 strokes. It
is sometimes counted as 4 in other books. |
| The left part of  and the right part
of  (i.e. except the  part), which are called respectively     and  and sometimes
represented (for convenience) respectively as  and B, is always counted as 3 strokes. It is sometimes counted as 2 in
other books. |
| The left part of  (i.e. except the  part), which is called  and sometimes represented (for convenience) as  is always counted as 8 strokes. It is sometimes
counted as 9 in other books. |
| The  part, which is called or    is always counted as 7 strokes. It is sometimes counted as 6 in other
books. |
The kanji character stroke count and rules data directly comes from KANJIDIC.
 |
Upon clicking (left or default mouse button) on the stroke
count of a kanji card, a context sensitive popup menu displays as show on the right. This
popup menu lists all kanji cards with the same stroke count, including kanji character,
kanji grade and kanji meaning. Selecting one of these listed kanji cards will switch
KanjiLearn to that kanji card (and dismiss the popup menu). This context sensitive popup menu can get really big since there are about 24 stroke count possible for about 2000 kanji. When the popup menu window is bigger than your screen size, you can scroll down using your browser's scroll bars. Note that this context sensitive popup menu is persistent and will close only when clicking on the Close menu item. |
This page 
was last updated by JP on 11/30/98.