Hiragana Stroke Order: Two Habits and One Exception

Hiragana stroke order is the sequence and direction of the pen movements that form each kana. Two habits and one exception describe where each movement starts, so you do not have to memorize 46 separate orders.

A teacher may start a writing lesson with the grip:

ペンはこう持ちます。ペンはこうもちます。 (penhakoumochimasu.)

You hold the pen like this.

Before you start writing hiragana by hand, or when you doubt the strokes you wrote, use this page. Someone who cannot read many hiragana needs the hiragana practice field note first, and kanji are not covered here.

Each pen movement, from touching the paper to lifting, is one stroke, and a kana's stroke count is its number of strokes.

The counts on this page come from the stroke data in Ukiyoe Japanese. That data is derived from KanjiVG, a project by Ulrich Apel under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

Both habits are about where each later stroke starts. The first is top before bottom: each later stroke starts no higher than the stroke before it. In that data, 35 of the 58 strokes that come second or later follow it.

The second habit is left before right, for parts side by side. The left part comes first even when the right part starts as high or a little higher, as in ぬ (nu), め (me), ゆ (yu), り (ri), and ふ (fu).

Left before right is about side-by-side parts only. In う (u), え (e), and こ (ko), a later stroke starts lower and further left, and top before bottom still applies.

In the same data, all 104 strokes of the 46 kana first head right, down, or diagonally down. None starts upward or straight to the left.

In 18 kana, a horizontal stroke, one that first heads right, is followed by a stroke that starts above where it began. Neither habit explains that higher stroke, so these 18 are the exception.

The second stroke starts higher in あ (a), お (o), か (ka), さ (sa), す (su), せ (se), た (ta), ち (chi), な (na), む (mu), や (ya), よ (yo), and を (wo). The third stroke does in き (ki), け (ke), は (ha), and ま (ma), and the fourth in ほ (ho).

You might expect the stroke that starts higher to come first, as top before bottom says. In all 18, the app's data puts the horizontal stroke before it instead. So these 18 orders are the ones to learn kana by kana.

The 10 kana are き (ki), さ (sa), そ (so), り (ri), ふ (fu), を (wo), な (na), ほ (ho), に (ni), and ゆ (yu). Look at each one, then write it large on paper without looking at the screen.

Number each stroke at the point where it begins, from 1 for the first. A stroke that heads upward or straight to the left from its number was written from the other end.

Then match each kana against the table.

The counts and stroke numbers in this table follow the same KanjiVG-derived data, under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

Three results are possible for each kana, and only one applies.

If you could not write the kana, or its stroke count differs from the table, watch the animation on its card. Count its numbered strokes.

If the count matches but your numbers differ from “Where to look,” use “Trace” on that kana's card. Do the same when a stroke outside “Where to look” starts higher than the one before it, or was written from the other end.

Otherwise, that kana is done. How neat it looks is outside these results. They come from this page alone and compare your strokes only with the app's data.

If several kana need a card, any of them can come first.

A き (ki) in three strokes, its lower part joined as in some printed fonts, has a count other than 4 and goes to its animation. A を (wo) started at its highest point has the count of 3 but begins with the table's stroke 2, so it goes to “Trace.”

If you learned そ (so) in two strokes or り (ri) in one, the count differs here, because the app's data has one and two.

When you open a row on the Kana page, a card shows one kana at a time, and “Next kana” moves to the next one. Each card plays its kana's stroke order once, one stroke after another, and a tap plays it again.

“Trace” opens a faint copy of the kana, and as you draw, a pink dot and a dotted stroke mark each stroke in turn. A stroke drawn out of order gets “This one comes first,” and one started from the far end gets “Start from the other end.”

Tracing is not scored, and drawing it with the dotted stroke in view does not test whether you remember the order. With only a mouse, you tap the strokes in order instead, judged for order but not direction, with no dotted stroke until two missed taps.

For practice without the dotted stroke, a row's “Write” answer mode has you write its kana from their sound and romaji, with nothing to copy. “Write” appears only on devices with a touch screen, so a computer with only a mouse or a pen tablet cannot select it. On such a computer, “Trace it instead” still lets you draw on the trace sheet.

For the kana from your sheet, working row by row saves switching, since な (na) and に (ni), for example, share the na-row.

The same comparison works for kana outside the table. Write one, number where each stroke begins, and compare its count and order with the animation on its card.

In the app's data, later strokes start no higher than the one before, except right-hand parts and 18 kana.

A different count points to the animation, and a matching count in another order to “Trace” on the card.

Numbering where each stroke begins can also show a stroke written from the other end.

For reading, no, since a reader sees only the finished kana. For writing by hand, the 18 exceptions are where the two habits alone would give an order that differs from the app's data. The results on this page compare order and count only, not neatness or speed.

Some printed fonts join strokes that handwriting writes separately, as the field note on learning hiragana shows in its section on look-alikes. When you count strokes, use the app's data, which has four for き (ki) and three for さ (sa). On their cards, the animation draws them one stroke at a time.

The counts behind the two habits cover hiragana only, so they say nothing about katakana. Katakana rows in the app open the same kind of card, with a stroke animation and “Trace.”

For シ (shi) and its look-alikes, where the direction of the long stroke matters, see the field note on learning katakana.