Hiragana · k row
く (ku): hiragana stroke order and pronunciation
く is the hiragana for ku, the u sound of the k row. It is written with one stroke. Its katakana twin is ク (ku).
- Romaji
- ku
- Strokes
- 1
- Listen
- Play ku
How to say ku
Tip: like 'koo' in 'cuckoo'
く in a word
The course introduces く with きく (to hear).
The k row
The k row keeps one consonant and runs through the five vowels, so く differs from its neighbours only in the vowel. Reading the row as a set fixes the pattern:
Course words written with く
6 words from the beginner word lists use く. Each links to the list it belongs to.
く in a sentence
From the beginner stories, where く turns up in running text rather than on its own.
ぼくは おもう。
I think: from The day off
「うん、いく！」
"Yeah, I'll come!" from The letter to Tom
Rules that involve く
Dakuten — the voicing mark
Two small strokes (゛) on a kana voice it: the shape stays the same but your vocal cords buzz. You'll meet 5 of these in the k→g row.
- か → がvoiced k becomes g
- き → ぎvoiced k becomes g
Built from く
With dakuten
- ぐgu
The same sound in katakana
Stroke-order data from KanjiVG by Ulrich Apel, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.
Practice this in Open Lingo
The Open Lingo Japanese course teaches く with tracing practice, a listening drill and spaced review, then uses it in real words within the same lesson.
Keep going
- ChartKatakana chartAll 46 basic katakana plus voiced and yōon combinations, with romaji, stroke-order diagrams, example loanwords and audio.
- Word listGreetings and polite phrasesEssential Japanese greetings and polite phrases for beginners, with hiragana, romaji, meaning and audio, taken from the Open Lingo course.
- Word listNumbersJapanese numbers for beginners: Sino-Japanese いち, に, さん, the native ひとつ, ふたつ counting set, and hundreds, thousands and 万, with audio.
- ToolNumbers 1 to 100 and converterJapanese numbers 0 to 100 in kana, kanji and romaji, a converter up to 999,999, and the rules for 4, 7, 9, sound-changing hundreds and 万.