Hiragana · w row
を (o): hiragana stroke order and pronunciation
を is the hiragana for o, the o sound of the w row. It is written with 3 strokes. Its katakana twin is ヲ (wo).
- Romaji
- o
- Strokes
- 3
- Listen
- Play o
How to write を, stroke by stroke
Each frame adds one stroke. The number sits where the stroke starts; strokes run left to right and top to bottom.
- stroke 1
- stroke 2
- stroke 3
How to say o
Tip: object-marker particle (pronounced 'o')
Spelled with the wa-row glyph but pronounced 'o'. Modern Japanese uses it only as a particle.
を in a word
The course introduces を with パン を たべる (I eat bread).
The w row
The w row keeps one consonant and runs through the five vowels, so を differs from its neighbours only in the vowel. Reading the row as a set fixes the pattern:
- わ waかわ (river)
- を oパン を たべる (I eat bread)
を in a sentence
From the beginner stories, where を turns up in running text rather than on its own.
くうこうで トムを まちます。
I wait for Tom at the airport. from At the airport
わたしは ニュースを みます。
I watch the news. from At the airport
Rules that involve を
を — the particle kana
を is pronounced 'o' and is used only as a grammar particle — it marks the object of an action. It appears between words, never starting one.
- パン を たべるI eat bread.
- みず を のむI drink water.
Built from を
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 を 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.