Katakana Stroke Order Mistakes: セ, ヲ, ヌ and ネ

There are 46 basic katakana. Counting with this site’s stroke-order data, only four of them, ノ, フ, ヘ and レ, are written in a single stroke. Almost every other character is built from two or three short lines. Because the lines are short and the way they combine decides the character, it is easy to start with the wrong one.

Japan’s elementary school curriculum has children read and write hiragana and katakana in grades 1 and 2, and asks them to write carefully “following the stroke order” (Course of Study for Elementary Schools, 2017, in Japanese). This article goes through the katakana whose stroke order learners most often get wrong, with the correct order and the reason each one goes wrong. The order follows what Japanese school textbooks teach. Stroke-by-stroke diagrams of all 46 are on this site’s katakana stroke-order page.

セ (se)

セ has two strokes. The first goes left to right, turns at the right end and comes back down to the left in a short hook. The second comes straight down from the top and curves to the right at the bottom.

The stroke count and the order are where it goes wrong. Hiragana せ has three strokes: the horizontal, then the right vertical, then the left one. Carrying that habit over, people often write the vertical of セ first, or split the hook of the first stroke into a separate stroke. セ comes from the kanji 世. It looks like hiragana せ, but I think it is better treated as a character with its own way of writing.

Writing the turn of the first stroke in one movement makes it easier to balance the length of the horizontal against the position of the vertical.

ヲ (wo)

ヲ has three strokes. The first is the top horizontal, the second is the short horizontal in the middle, and the third starts at the right end of the top line and sweeps down to the lower left.

Because it looks like フ with an extra line, a common way to write it is フ in one stroke and then the middle line. In the correct order, you write both horizontals first and then bring the right-hand line down from the top. The top line and the right-hand line are not one stroke.

ヲ comes from 乎. It hardly ever appears in everyday writing, so people rarely write it and often learn it without ever checking its order.

ヌ (nu)

ヌ has two strokes. The first goes across, turns, and sweeps down to the lower left. The second is a dot from upper left to lower right that crosses that sweep.

There are two common mistakes: writing the dot first, and placing the dot so that it looks like ス (su). ス also has two strokes with the same first stroke, but its dot comes out of the middle of the sweep toward the lower right and does not cross it. The dot of ヌ crosses the sweep. ヌ comes from the right side of 奴, and picturing the shape of 又 helps with where the dot crosses.

ネ (ne)

ネ has four strokes. The first is the dot at the top, the second goes across, turns and sweeps to the lower left, the third is the vertical in the middle, and the fourth is the short dot on the lower right.

The second and third strokes are the usual trouble. People often write the vertical first and then add the across-and-sweep stroke. Writing the turning stroke first makes it easier to decide where the vertical goes. The last dot also gets forgotten, or put on the left.

ネ comes from 祢, and it looks very much like the kanji radical 礻. When you later learn kanji such as 社 and 神, that radical also starts with the dot at the top. Learning ネ in this order pays off when you move on to kanji.

Other characters that cause doubt

モ (mo). Three strokes: a short horizontal, a long horizontal, then a vertical that curves to the right. In hiragana も the vertical comes first, so people often start モ with the vertical too. The shapes are similar, but in モ the horizontals come first.

ヨ (yo). Three strokes: the first goes across and turns down, the second is the middle horizontal, the third is the bottom horizontal. Writing three horizontals and then adding the right vertical gives the same number of lines in a different order.

ヤ (ya). Two strokes: the first goes across and turns, the second is the long line coming down from the top. The long line stands out, so it is tempting to write it first, but the short turning stroke comes first.

Why katakana stroke order goes wrong

I think there are two reasons.

One is that the hiragana habit comes first. In Japanese schools hiragana is taught before katakana, and many learners of Japanese also start with hiragana. Characters with the same sound and a similar shape, such as セ and せ or モ and も, tend to get written in the hiragana order.

The other is that you cannot tell from the finished shape whether a turning line is one stroke or two. The first stroke of セ, the first stroke of ヌ and the second stroke of ネ all go across and turn in one movement. The upper right corner of ヲ looks like a turn too, but it is two separate strokes. Looking at the finished character does not show that difference.

What to check

When you watch someone write katakana, or check your own writing, these three points make order mistakes easy to spot.

• Stroke count. How many times did the pen leave the paper? Twice for セ, four times for ネ.
• Where each stroke starts. The third stroke of ヲ starts at the upper right; the first stroke of ネ is the dot at the top.
• Whether turning lines are written in one movement. At the turn in セ, ヌ and ネ, does the hand stop and lift?

The way to fix them is the same as for hiragana. Do not fix everything at once; pick one or two characters a day. Do not stop someone in the middle of writing; once they finish, write it again together with the model. For hiragana, see Hiragana Stroke Order: The Characters Learners Most Often Get Wrong. For telling the look-alikes シ, ツ, ソ and ン apart, see シ vs ツ and ソ vs ン.

Checking stroke by stroke in StudyX Japanese Letters Tracer

StudyX Japanese Letters Tracer is an iPhone and iPad app for practising hiragana and katakana stroke order. When you choose a character, the model draws itself one stroke at a time in the correct order. Write one stroke with your finger or a stylus and lift, and the next stroke appears. After the last stroke the model disappears and only your own writing is left. It does not score or judge your lines.

For the characters in this article, watch where each model stroke starts and where it switches to the next stroke. The first stroke of セ keeps going through the turn in one line; the third stroke of ヲ starts at the upper right. The animation shows differences that a diagram of the finished character cannot.

The app opens on a gojūon table of the 46 basic hiragana. To reach a katakana character, tap the hiragana with the same sound and switch with the buttons at the top of the practice screen: せ for セ, を for ヲ, ぬ for ヌ and ね for ネ. Because you can switch between hiragana and katakana on the spot, you can also write pairs with different stroke orders, such as セ and せ or モ and も, one after the other.

It covers 142 characters: hiragana and katakana with their dakuten and handakuten forms. Combined sounds such as キャ, small characters such as ッ and ャ, and the long vowel mark ー are not included. There is no grid on the screen; instead you can switch the model between large, medium and small sizes, and show a dotted cross guide. It is a one-time purchase with no ads and no in-app purchases. On iPhone it runs in landscape.

For a first session, see Getting Started with StudyX Japanese Letters Tracer. For daily routines, see practice tips.