Thread:Gsimenas/@comment-213.229.65.182-20160812143216/@comment-6697950-20160813134403

I don't need to remember the stroke orders for each individual kanji. But I can pretty accurately predict the stroke order based on experience. That's why I said that learning your first kanji was primarily important for grasping the principles of drawing them. After encountering various kanji, you'll familiarise yourself with the radicals and know how each one is drawn (and in what order) and can then just apply this knowledge for any new kanji.

As for why this is important, the simplest way to insert a kanji that you do not know or remember in a computer is by drawing it with a kanji recognition tool. Some of them, like the one on jisho.org, are very sensitive to proper stroke order. Others, like the one on google translate, are less sensitive and will propably guess what you're looking for even if you make errors as long as you get the general image right. But even that one finds certain kanji hard to identify unless you draw them accurately, so being able to tell approximately how to draw a kanji is quite useful. Especially when you encounter a very complicated kanji. Knowing how to break it down makes it much easier to identify.

Edit: @Mamue Actually, I draw the kanji on paper when I'm practising/learning them. I rely on muscle memory quite a bit. Though, I do admit that I haven't had the time to practice lately due to managing several translation projects. So I mainly draw them virtually these days.