This character is printed in gray because it is not in the HSK Level a set of characters. So you can skip its pronunciation if you want to, but you do need to know its meaning, as it appears as a part of many composite characters (for example, the next two). We’ve given the pronunciation in gray, so you can look the character up in a dictionary if you want to.

We’ve given 木 the serial number 10a, because we are reserving the numbers 1 to 800 for the 800 HSK Level a characters covered in this book. You can easily find such characters: for example 10a appears just before Character 10. We’ve called it 10a and not 9a, because it is introduced because of, and hence belongs with, Character 10.

The first two strokes are like “ten” (Character 4), so the horizontal stroke is written before the vertical one. The stroke order also illustrates another general principle: you often draw a central part before drawing in small symmetrical side-pieces.