It seems skritter only accepts the stroke order of 点点横, but my girlfriend learned it in school as 横点点. I've asked other locals and it seems 横点点 is pretty common and some people even write it as 点横点. What gives?

Maybe I should clarify. My girlfriend is native Chinese who scored in the top of her class in the standardized college Mandarin tests in North China.

I would write .-., my girlfriend says she does that, but depends on the writing style. Pleco also has the stroke order as .-.

Skritter seems to accept either ..- or .-. But not -..

So ... powers that be, is there any way to make a little tweak here?

"My girlfriend is native Chinese who scored in the top of her class in the standardized college Mandarin tests in North China."

That's great, but there is no such thing as a native writer of a language.

I cannot speak to stroke order as it is taught in the Sinosphere, but least in Japan, 点点横 is the taught order for 舟. This is based on the general principle of where a line strikes through something, that line is drawn last. For example, the vertical line is the last stroke of 中. Of course, there are exceptions to this, such as 世, but 舟 is cited as a specific example of this rule in one of the kanji books I have aimed at Japanese elementary school students. I think 横点点 is wrong and that any "tweak" to allow it would be an error.

Another quick observation. Maybe just because I write it this way but -.. Is the most "awkward" way of writing it and usually the stroke order is designed to keep a nice flow to the character writing.

A person who speaks their native language is a native speaker, but a person who writes their native language is not a native writer?

My whole point is that regardless of what the dictionaries, textbooks and apparent hordes of Japanese elementary school book readers might say, there are educated people in China who were taught 横点点. Is it a new development? A local variation? I don't really know, or care. I just know that it's being used in real life and that should be taken into consideration.

Checked quite a few websites and there is examples of all methods, but .-. Seems to be the most popular. One website does cite that specific character as having different stroke orders in mainland china, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

I don't really know why people get hung up on these type of things though, it's like people writing English letters different ways.

"A person who speaks their native language is a native speaker, but a person who writes their native language is not a native writer?"

Correct. This is something that would be covered in an introductory linguistics class. You may have noticed the abundance of institutions teaching people to write their native language and the lack of institutions teaching people to speak their native language.

Who cares what a few educated Chinese people you have met are doing? In this instance, they are not doing it in any prescribed stroke order that I know of. To the extent that it is being taught anywhere (and all you have is people claiming they were taught this way - you do not have a current curriculum showing such), it is likely a local variation in stroke order, which does occur sometimes. In your specific example, you do have a reversal of the general guideline that the sweeping horizontal stroke is written last, as in 母. (how do you write *that* character?) This, to me, is a bit more that a quirky variant - it's rather fundamental.

I disagree that every single thing that is done in "real life" needs to be included in Skritter. For example, many Japanese (including in my household), pronounce 七 as "hichi" although the standard reading is "shichi". It would be wrong to include that reading in the software, I believe, and I teach my native speaker of Japanese children "shichi" even though we say "hichi" in my house. For Skritter's purposes, I think that the stroke order set forth in 现代汉语常用字表, which includes some alternate stroke orders, is appropriate.

I've been writing Chinese characters by hand for more years than I haven't. If you write 舟 in your odd stroke order, will people be able to read it? Yes. Will it be the best looking character? Probably not. The guidelines on stroke order were not picked at random; your characters will not look as good. Don't believe me? Write the 癶 of 発 last or the 臣 of 蔵 first and see what happens. (this should also answer bjnsharp's question about this particular "hangup")

Yea I agree writing the character you have given examples of in the wrong order to that extreme level would ruin it. I notice this all the time with my classmates who can write but have not learnt the stroke order. But those examples are a million miles away from the original discussion of 舟. It seems when it comes to Japanese, 点点横. Also seems there are quite a few differences between mainland/Taiwan and Hong Kong and particularly Japan. Seems Japanese stroke order for 必 is also quite different.

Well I disagree. I'm definitely more interested in what is practical. I would love to have some of the common pronunciation variations included in the "correct" answer.

And to answer your question "who cares what a few educated Chinese" are doing... exactly. Who cares? If it's being taught in schools to people, why the big deal?

"Who cares? If it's being taught in schools to people, why the big deal?"

Sarcasm was my first foreign language, so I am reading you loud and clear.

Unfortunately, you haven't established that the stroke order you claim for 舟 is being taught in any school. I previously challenged you to name a curriculum that teaches it. Can you name one? While I am sure your girlfriend is a wonderful person, what she tells you is not data. By the way, when do write the horizontal stroke of 母? (you seem to have missed when I asked before)

And yes, bjnsharp, there are some differences in stroke order between PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan on some characters. I note you cite to 必, which is given as such an example in the Wikipedia article on stroke order. However, you will find that for the great majority of characters, there is uniformity of stroke order. No one writes 三 from the bottom up or the vertical stroke of 中 first.

We do support very common, non-official stroke orders. See our Chinese stroke order research page which George put together:

http://www.skritter.com/stroke-research

"Ban1 radical (舟) - Last three strokes:

diǎn, héng, diǎn - Arch Chinese
diǎn, héng, diǎn - eStroke.com
diǎn, héng, diǎn - MDBG
diǎn, héng, diǎn - Nciku
diǎn, diǎn, héng - Taiwanese MoE
diǎn, héng, diǎn - Wenlin
diǎn, héng, diǎn - Paper Dictionary

Conclusion: for this one, the Taiwanese MoE is the only dissenting voice, but because it is an authoritative dissenting voice, we will support the last two strokes in any order. The animation will reflect the mainland majority order of héng, followed by diǎn."

So 船, which is currently in as diǎn, diǎn, héng (..-) only, needs to be changed to match our policy of having diǎn, héng, diǎn (.-.) as the primary stroke order and diǎn, diǎn, héng (..-) as the secondary. We'll make it happen. We won't add héng, diǎn, diǎn (-..), though, without more evidence saying that it's a common alternative. This could happen, though, given what we do for the similar 母 radical:

"Mu3 radical (母) - Last three strokes

héng, diǎn, diǎn - Arch Chinese
héng, diǎn, diǎn - eStroke.com
diǎn, héng, diǎn - MDBG
diǎn, héng, diǎn - Nciku
diǎn, diǎn, héng - Taiwanese MoE
diǎn, héng, diǎn - Wenlin
diǎn, héng, diǎn - Paper Dictionary

Conclusion: since there seems to be considerable confusion, we have decided to make all three interior strokes interchangeable. The animation order will reflect the simple majority view: diǎn, héng, diǎn."

Readers, please note that if you find stroke order mistakes in the future, you can open the word popup and look to the bottom for the corrections form. It's an easy way to get the stroke orders fixed, because it goes straight to Jeremy, who is in charge of the Chef and the Jhef--the tools we use for editing Chinese and Japanese characters and their stroke orders.

Also, if you want to check out some stroke orders, an easy way is to throw them in a link to the scratchpad like this:

http://www.skritter.com/scratchpad?words=船_舟_母

Thanks guys. Since I only study on ipad, does that mean my main option is to use the feedback button, or come here?

Adding these kind of categorizations to the iOS feedback form is coming soon, but we don't have it yet. But that's the most direct way to get the stroke corrections in from iPad, yes: using the Send Feedback on X button in the word info view while you're studying. (You might have to scroll down to see it.)