The next stroke is called piě, which means "throw away" or just "throw," and is a stroke drawn diagonally downward from right to left:

As you can see, in its printed form, the piě stroke thins and almost coming to a point on the left side. This convention derives from the calligraphy version of the stroke, in which the brush is lifted slightly off the page at the end of the stroke. Although most Chinese people don't follow this convention in their daily lives, noticing it will help you make sense of how unfamiliar characters are meant to be drawn.

Incorporating the piě stroke with others that you know allows you to write this new and very common character:

And here is one of the most commonly used words in Chinese:

Here's another character that uses the piě stroke with others you already know:

This next character is easy to confuse with the previous one if you're not alert to the difference. In this case, the shù stroke extends above the top héng stroke:

Adding an additional héng stroke to the bottom of the previous character yields a new one:

Here's a hànzi character that's split down the middle, with a narrow right side and a wider left side. This type of split is very common in Chinese, and I'll discuss it in more detail later in this book. For now, just notice it:

The next character includes the same two strokes on the left side as the previous one. Additionally, you may also recognize the right side, which is a slightly narrowed variation of the character 主 (pronounced zhǔ in Mandarin) that you learned in Chapter 1:

Before moving on, note that 主 and 住 are not homophones in Mandarin because they have different tones.

Here's another character that's also built from the character 主:

As with the character ren above, both of these characters comprise two separate elements, one on the left and the other on the right. As you can see from the stroke order in each of these three characters, when a character is split in this way, you should first draw all of the strokes that make up the left side from top to bottom, and then follow the same basic rule on the right side.

Here’s another common character that’s split in the same way as the previous two:

Here's another important character that, in my humble opinion, looks quintessentially Chinese. The stroke order is a little counterintuitive, but I find that following it helps me to write the character correctly:

In some cases, a piě stroke may be very short, so that you might confuse it for a diǎn strike. For example, here's a common character that includes a diǎn stroke on the left and a piě stroke on the right:

Look closely and you’ll spot the difference: the diǎn stroke begins with a point at the top and becomes thicker as it drawn downward. In contrast, the piě stroke ends with a point at the bottom.

Here's another character that uses both a diǎn stroke and a piě stroke:

Again, notice the difference between these two strokes: Both are drawn from top to bottom, but only the piě stroke ends with a point.

Here's a character that builds from one you already know – the character 日 (pronounced ri in Mandarin), which you learned in the previous chapter. As you can see, this new character only differs by the inclusion of a piě stroke as the first stroke drawn:

And to make the next character, start with a héng stroke and then copy the strokes in白:

Although 白 and 百 have the same pinyin spelling, their tones are different, so these two words are not considered homophones in Mandarin.

Here's another character that builds on one you know: the character目(pronounced "mu" in Mandarin) from the previous chapter. As with白, this new character also starts with a piě stroke:

In some cases, a piě stroke may be drawn longer than usual, or with less of a slant. As in the previous examples, however, in every case a piě stroke is drawn from left to right and ends with a point.

For example, here's a common character with a slightly longer piě stroke that’s a bit less slanted than those you’ve already seen. Don't mistake this first stroke for a héng stroke because, as with all piě strokes, it's drawn downward from right to left:

Adding the character 口, which means "mouth," below the previous character creates a new character. You can remember this character as the tongue that sticks out of the mouth, but enables "thousands" of different ideas to emerge:

Here's another character with a longer piě stroke. As usual, this stroke is drawn downward from right to left:

The next two characters are related and look similar, so try not to confuse them:

Finally, this is one of the most commonly used characters in Chinese:

Before moving on, notice that the last three strokes – the héng + shù + héng combination – is the character 土 (pronounced tǔ in Mandarin) that you learned in the previous chapter. As you continue studying Chinese, you'll notice that complex characters are often composed of simpler ones.