The strokes of Chinese Characters part 4

3. And the following by two single strokes with a turn:

	shuzhe	vertical stroke with a horizontal turn to the right	as in the character yi (doctor, medicine)
	hengzhe	horizontal stroke with a vertical turn	as in the character kou (mouth)

4. Combined strokes are made out of basic ones. The following are a few examples:

	shuwangou	vertical stroke combined with a level bending stroke with a hook	as in the character ye (also)
	piedian	down stroke to the left combined with a dot	as in the character nu (woman)
	shuzhezhegou	vertical stroke with a double turn and a hook	as in the character ma (horse)

If a character can be compared to a word in alphabetic languages, then strokes are like letters... learning them is the key to memorize characters. And then, characters don't only need to be correct, they should also be as beautiful and balanced as possible. It is therefore necessary to copy the single strokes many times (be it with a brush or, much easier, with a pen) to memorize their shape and thickness.

Ref:http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-writing/strokes.htm