相同的笔画可能构成不同的汉字，比如一撇一捺，可能是“八[bā]”、“人[rén]”，也可能是“入[rù]”；由一横、一竖、一横这三笔构成的汉字，可能是“工[gōng]”，可能是“土[tǔ]”，也可能是“士[shì]”，还可能是“干[gān]”。仔细观察可以发现，同一个笔画在不同的汉字中会发生一些变化。
Different characters can be made up of the same strokes written in the same order. The length of each stroke, its position in relationship to other strokes, and whether it touches or overlaps other strokes will determine which character is to be created.
For example, one left-falling stroke “丿”[piě] and one right-falling stroke “㇏”[nà] can be八[bā] (eight), 人 [rén](human), or入[rù](enter). Do you see the little difference between them? And what about one horizontal stroke “一”[héng], one vertical stroke “〡”[shù]and one horizontal stroke “一”[héng]? How many characters do you get by combining the tree strokes? Here are four of them: 工[gong](work), 土[tǔ](soil), 士[shì](gentleman), 干[gān](dry). Upon careful observation you may find that one stroke can have subtle variations in different characters.
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八 |
入 |
人 |
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eight |
enter |
human |
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工 |
土 |
士 |
干 |
|
work |
soil |
gentleman |
dry |
注意观察分辨下面各组字的细微笔画差别：
Before we proceed with the use of Chinese Character strokes, now let's try a "sharp eye" game to see if you can tell the slight differences of strokes in each pair of characters below.
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（1）大（[dà]big） |
丈（[zhàng]about three meters） |
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（2）已（[yǐ]already） |
己（[jǐ]oneself） |
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（3）午（[wǔ]noon） |
牛（[niú]cattle） |
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（4）干（[gān]dry） |
千（[qiān]thousand） |
于（[yú]on; with） |
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（5）庆（[qìng]celebrate） |
厌（[yàn]hate） |
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（6）古（g[ǔ]ancient） |
占（[zhàn]occupy） |
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（7）末（[mò]tip, end） |
未（[wèi]not yet） |
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（8）贝（bèi]shell; money） |
见（[jiàn]see） |
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在书写汉字时千万不能随意改变笔画及其各自位置。对初学者来说，“一笔一画”地学习汉字是非常重要的。当然了，手写时对笔画略微作些调整还是可以接受的。我们每个人的书写习惯不同，写出的同一个字，笔画也有细微的差别。在不同的字体中，有些笔画的形状也发生了很大的变化。我们需要注意的是，有些笔画适当变形并不影响该字的正确性，但有的笔画非常重要，稍一改变就会影响汉字的正确性。
Now you may understand that he strokes and their specific positions can’t be changed at will. So studying each character “stroke by stroke” is especially important for beginners. Of course, there is a certain level of flexibility with strokes in handwriting. Individuals make slightly different shapes of Chinese Character strokes due to their various writing habits just the same way as there are no identical signatures in English. Also, when Chinese Character are written in different calligraphic styles, the strokes may vary a bit accordingly. You may wonder to what extent exactly the “tolerance” of writing strokes is. What we need to bear in mind is that some changes in the shape of a stroke may not lead to a mistake in handwriting while others are simply not permissible.
