What Order to Teach Hiragana In: Start with the Easiest to Write

Hiragana has 46 basic characters. Counted by the stroke order taught in Japanese schools, 11 of them have one stroke, 17 have two, 13 have three, and 5 have four.

The one-stroke characters are く (ku), し (shi), そ (so), つ (tsu), て (te), の (no), ひ (hi), へ (he), る (ru), ろ (ro) and ん (n). The four-stroke ones are き (ki), た (ta), な (na), ふ (fu) and ほ (ho). Within the same script, the effort it takes to write each character varies quite a lot.

Most people who start teaching hiragana, to a child or to themselves, begin with あ (a), the first character of the gojūon table. In this post I explain why I think writing practice does not need to follow that order, and what order I would use instead. This is meant for anyone teaching kana: parents of young children, teachers of beginners, and adult self-learners. If you want to see each character built up one stroke at a time, our hiragana stroke-order pages (in Japanese) show all 46 as numbered diagrams, readable without knowing Japanese.

The gojūon order is for sounds

The gojūon table is an arrangement of sounds. Vowels run down one side and consonants across the other, which makes it an excellent way to learn how the sound system works. For reading, memorising and looking things up, it is the most useful order there is.

For writing, though, the first row is not the easiest. あ has three strokes, with crossing lines and a large looping curve at the end. お (o) also has three, combining crossing and curving lines. The next row brings き, with four.

When the first characters are hard, it is easy to conclude that hiragana itself is hard. I think the order for reading and the order for writing can be treated separately. Japan’s national curriculum places reading and writing hiragana in the first two grades of elementary school, but it does not set the order in which characters are written (Course of Study for Elementary Schools, 2017, in Japanese).

Grouping by line shape

Ease of writing depends on the shape of the lines as well as the number of strokes. I find it helpful to see the 46 characters in roughly these groups.

1. Characters written as a single line

し, つ, く, へ, て, の, ん and others. One stroke, and no lines crossing. Between them they cover the basic movements: pulling straight down, curving, and turning back. I think the first characters are best chosen from this group.

2. Separate lines that don’t cross

い (i), こ (ko), り (ri), う (u), に (ni) and others. Two or three lines, but they never cross. What you learn here is balance: how much space to leave between lines, and which one should be longer.

3. Crossing lines

け (ke), た, さ (sa), き, ち (chi), せ (se), も (mo) and others. Where the horizontal and vertical lines cross decides the shape of the character. Many of the characters people write in the wrong stroke order are in this group, so it is worth checking stroke order at the same time. I covered the common ones in Hiragana Stroke Order: The Characters Learners Most Often Get Wrong.

4. Characters with a small loop

な, ぬ (nu), ね (ne), は (ha), ほ, ま (ma), よ (yo), る, す (su) and others. The small loop in the middle or at the end of a stroke is hard for beginners. It comes out too big, or collapses. I think this group is easier left until later.

These groups don’t divide perfectly. A character like あ has both crossing lines and a large curve. It is enough to think of the movements getting more complex as you go from group 1 to group 4.

Don’t teach look-alikes back to back

Several hiragana look alike. さ and ち are mirror images. ね, れ (re) and わ (wa) share the same left side and differ on the right. る and ろ differ only in whether the stroke ends in a loop, and は and ほ differ in the number of horizontal lines on the right.

Young children often write letters reversed, as mirror writing, and adults mix up similar shapes too. I think practising look-alikes on the same day makes them blend together. Getting one solid first, and then introducing the other by pointing out the difference, leads to fewer mix-ups.

Names can skip the queue

There is one exception to all of the above: the learner’s own name.

For a Japanese child, their name is usually the thing they most want to write. If it contains characters from group 4, it is fine to practise them early. Being able to write your own name, even imperfectly, carries the rest of the practice. For adult learners with non-Japanese names, the name is usually written in katakana, so learning to write it in katakana can be a motivating side project alongside hiragana.

How much per day

In my view, one to three new characters a day is plenty. Write the day’s characters a few times, then write each character learned on earlier days once, and stop. It takes a few minutes.

Once the 46 basic characters are in place, move on to the voiced forms. が (ga), ざ (za), ぱ (pa) and so on add two short marks or a small circle to characters already learned, so they go quickly. Small characters like っ and ゃ, and combined sounds like きゃ (kya) and しゅ (shu), are best learned after the basic shapes are stable, by using them in words.

Practising in your own order with 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.

The app opens on a gojūon table of the 46 basic hiragana. To follow the order in this post, tap the character you want directly from the table. The arrow buttons at the bottom of the practice screen move to the previous or next character in gojūon order, so if you are following your own order, use the close button at the top left to go back to the table and pick the next one. Voiced forms and katakana are switched with the buttons at the top of the practice screen.

It covers 142 characters: hiragana and katakana with their dakuten and handakuten forms. Combined sounds such as きゃ and small characters such as っ and ゃ 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. A speaker button plays the character’s sound. 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.