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始 — to begin; to start; then

to begin; to start; then; only then

Pinyin
shǐ
Strokes
8
HSK level
HSK 2
Handwriting
recognition only

How to write 始: 8 strokes

Each cell adds one stroke to the previous ones, with the new stroke in red. Stroke order is not decoration: it sets the proportions of the character and makes handwriting legible to a reader. The syllabus asks you to recognise this character rather than write it by hand.

始 — 8 strokes, in writing order from left to right.

Build a printable practice sheet with 始

Words with 始 in the HSK syllabus: 5

Every word in the official 2026 syllabus that contains this character, with the level it is introduced at. Learning a character pays off through these: each one combines with the characters you already know.

  1. 开始kāishǐto begin; to start; beginning; startHSK 2
  2. 始终shǐzhōngfrom beginning to end; all alongHSK 5
  3. 原始yuánshǐfirst; original; primitive; originalHSK 6
  4. 创始人chuàngshǐréncreator; founder; initiatorHSK 7–9
  5. 自始至终zìshǐ-zhìzhōngfrom start to finishHSK 7–9

Glosses come from CC-CEDICT, used under CC BY-SA 4.0, and are the dictionary’s first sense rather than a translation chosen for context.