Is stroke order important?

Well I know that the stroke order is important for the kanas and kanji, but do people really write nowadays? I-ve read in a few articles that you no longer have to take the time to actually learn the stroke order, since almost nobody writes with pen or pencil now. But as a non native japanese learner, should I learn?

Of course!
Why don't you want to follow the stroke?
In kanji writing, like alphabet words, all lines & points are connected by one dancing line like a ballet, start, run, stop, jump, etc.
SO beautiful & balanced. You may not advance in learning, if you don't follow.

I'm a high school student, taking Chinese I.
There are lots of words that I write out of order, but generally, I try to write the strokes correctly. In reality though, it's really hard. The top to bottom left to right rule isn't always helpful, especially when you have a really complicated kanji and you don't know where to even begin.

I doubt it will prohibit your learning though because I write a lot of words out of stroke order, yet my Chinese teacher says that my handwriting is beautiful, like a native's. That's a very high compliment coming from someone who (A) Is only a Chinese I student and (B) writes some of her characters out of stroke order.

But I agree with Ay that it is important. When you don't know the correct order, it messes you up and can make the word look different. But obsessing every time you write a kanji is what's going to hold back your learning. I say don't stress about it too much If you write out of order sometimes.

This is just my personal opinion.

I know around 2000 kanji (so close to completling the jouyou) that I have self studied by myself. As time went by I picked up the correct stroke order of kanji 98% of the time without looking. Like the commentor above said there is a flow to writing.

If you are learning right now to get ahead in some class or for calligraphy stroke order is probably a good thing to go out of the way to learn. It does not take much time, and you will most likely pick it up naturally eventually.

However, outside of classrooms I cannot imagine you ever NEEDING to know stroke order, and even my teacher was never really anal about it.

Sense you did not say what you are aspiring to I cannot really give you a more focused answer.

If you were referring to working in Japan, I would ASSUME that you would not need it. However, I have no experience in the matter.

The importance of stoke order is actually debatable among the local parents.

Basically, in Japan you can get a minus point on your stroke order tests if you haven't learned them properly, but some say it shouldn't be as strict as that.

If it was up to me, I would say that you should learn them properly, at least in your beginner years. Those are the basics, and the basics will help you write beautifully and efficiently.

But then, stroke orders, be it kanji or kana, (officially) changes from time to time. For example, the kanji 必 used to be written from left to right, but now you write it from top to bottom. Of course, this is because they realized that it was more practical to write it that way. In other words, again, correct stoke orders are supposed to help you write practically.

By the way, I don't think the importance of stroke order has anything to do with almost nobody writing with pen or pencil. That is like saying you don't have to learn the correct way to write the English letter B or G anymore. I'd say that if you're going to handwrite, you want to learn the right way to do it. You can make your own rules after you learn your basics.

And note that almost every student up to the age of say 22 handwrites everything they write at school. Also do note that you can easily distinguish handwriting between most native Japanese children and most non-native adult learners of kanji/kana. Both are crooked in their own ways. I wonder if it has anything to do with the difference between the ways they learn them.

I know you are probably thinking, "Oh, no! One MORE thing I have to learn!!", but in fact you may find that kakijun (stroke order) makes it EASIER to learn and remember the kanji.

As has been pointed out, you will notice that several have the same logic. It is not (usually) arbitrary.

That said, good luck on finding the kakijun for the first character in "miko", 巫女. Even miko in shrines don't know, haha.

And, if you don't know stroke order, then the secret meaning of kunoichi, "lady ninja", will always be unknown: 女.

If you don't follow the correct order, I will give you F on it even it may look ok! lol.
It is like writing "car" starting with a, r, then putting c in the front. Sure it may look right but no continuity and jumbled up. I am sure you don't do that unless you have a dyslexia.
No teacher would let you get away in the basic strokes, if he/she thinks you have a hope & has a real interest in you as a student. Catch my drift?

if you use the wrong stroke order you may not be able to use gaiji on your computer to look up unknown kanji by drawing them.

think about that...! seems like the loss of a perfectly good and useful tool just to escape the correct drawing order.

i recommend remembering the stroke order as best you can for all kanji. as others have mentioned it does become second nature after a while of practicing. you will be able to draw kanji you don't even know in the correct order after some time.

when i was in japanese school i could draw all kinds of unknown kanji correctly just because the stroke order rules became second nature.

Let me emphasize and support Winterwolf's point. Touch screen devices (tablet computers, phones, Nintendo DS) sometimes allow kanji input by writing on the screen, but the kanji recognition software uses the stroke order to help identify the kanji. You can produce a kanji that looks perfectly good, but if you wroteit with the wrong stroke order, the software will be confused.

Learn the stroke order. It has a natural flow and a few simple rules. As others say, it will become second nature to you, and it will make writing easier in the long run.

Also, learning stroke order will help you to cultivate another element of Japanese culture in yourself. It is the concept of "ichigo ichie." Treat everything you do as deserving your utmost focus and effort, as if it is the only opportunity in your life you will get to do it properly. In other words, don't cut corners by thinking "I don't need to worry about stroke order, in the end it all looks the same. If it ever matters, I'll do it the right way that time." Learn to write correctly because it is good practice at exercising self-discipline. Strive to do your best.

Thank you all for your opinions and advice, it was very insightful. Dont get me wrong, I did take my time to learn the stroke order for hiragana, writing helps me learn easier and memorize. I admit I dont remember exactly the order of all, but I learned how the order flows. I should have cleared my situation, I'm learning by myself, using whatever online services are free and a few books I have, that unfortunately dont help with strokes or kanas in general. One site said that it would save time to only memorize the characters, and it had a few other logical reasons. But your answers have made me realize that if I want to truly learn the language, I should focus on stroke order. I only hoped I had a real life teacher XD

One other thing about stroke order. If you do read handwritten kanji or hiragana, a lot of times the characters are pretty seriously distorted (just like cursive handwriting with Roman letters). Lines become curves, strokes are often run together or or written at odd angles. Sometimes the only way to decipher the characters is by understanding the stroke order.