Hiragana That Look Alike: ぬ and め, わ れ ね, は and ほ

Among the 46 basic hiragana, several look very much alike. ぬ (nu) and め (me) both have two strokes and are nearly identical until the very end. わ (wa), れ (re) and ね (ne) all have two strokes, and the first stroke of each is the same vertical line.

Learners mix these up both when reading and when writing, usually because they haven’t pinned down where the difference lies. This post takes the look-alike groups one at a time and puts the difference into words. You can check every stroke on this site’s hiragana stroke order page (in Japanese), which shows each character stroke by stroke.

ぬ and め: is there a loop at the end?

ぬ and め both have two strokes. The first is a short line going down from the upper left. The second comes down diagonally from the upper right to the lower left, then turns back and swings round to the right.

Only the end of the second stroke differs. ぬ finishes with a small loop. め ends without one.

A simple way to hold it: the one with the loop is ぬ.

わ, れ and ね: how the second stroke ends

わ, れ and ね all have two strokes. The first is a vertical line. The second starts from the left, crosses the vertical line and swings round to the right. Up to that point the three are almost the same.

The difference is in how the second stroke ends.

Kana	How the second stroke ends
わ wa	bulges out to the right and curls back inward
れ re	comes down to the lower right, then flicks up and out to the right
ね ne	finishes with a small loop

The loop on ね is the same as the loop on ぬ. Once you can tell わ from ね, the only thing left for れ is that its end goes outward.

は and ほ: one horizontal line or two

は (ha) has three strokes and ほ (ho) has four. Both start with the vertical line on the left, and both end with a stroke that comes down and loops at the bottom.

The difference is the number of horizontal lines on the right: one in は, two in ほ.

There is a second difference that is easy to miss. In は, the right-hand vertical starts above the horizontal line, so it sticks out a little above it. In ほ, the vertical comes down from the top horizontal and does not stick out. If you let it stick out when writing ほ, you get something that looks like は with an extra line.

る and ろ: the loop again

る (ru) and ろ (ro) are both a single stroke. る ends with a loop; ろ ends without one.

So the loop is the dividing line here too. ぬ and め, ね and わ, る and ろ: in each pair, one has the loop and the other doesn’t. If you remember “the loop makes nu, ne, ru”, three pairs fall into place.

The kanji they came from

Hiragana grew out of cursive forms of kanji. The stroke order pages on this site list the source kanji for each character.

Hiragana	Source kanji
ぬ	奴
め	女
わ	和
れ	礼
ね	祢
は	波
ほ	保
る	留
ろ	呂

You don’t need these to write hiragana. Some learners find, though, that knowing each one has a different origin helps them accept that two similar shapes are really separate characters.

Practise them together or apart?

My own view is that it works best to learn look-alike kana apart at first, and to compare them side by side only once you can write each one. If you start with both together, you end up studying the difference before either shape is secure. Learn ぬ, come back to め a few days later, then write the two next to each other. The difference then shows up as a contrast between two characters you already know, not as one more thing to memorize.

The order in which to learn hiragana is covered in What Order to Teach Hiragana In.

When you mix them up

When you write め for ぬ, rubbing it out and trying again tells you little. Put your character next to the model and find the one place that differs. “Add the loop and it becomes ぬ” is easier to act on than “that’s wrong”. The same goes if you are helping a child: point to the spot and name what to add.

It also helps to keep what you wrote rather than erasing it straight away. Comparing your own character with the model is the quickest way to see the difference.

Comparing them in StudyX Japanese Letters Tracer

StudyX Japanese Letters Tracer is an iPhone and iPad app for practising hiragana and katakana stroke order. Choose a character and the model line grows stroke by stroke in the correct order. Write one stroke with your finger or a pen, lift it, and the model for the next stroke appears while the previous one fades. When you finish, the model disappears and only your character is left. Nothing is scored or marked right or wrong.

For look-alike kana, watch the model for the last stroke closely: whether the second stroke of ぬ or め ends in a loop is right there in the animation. After writing, the redo button clears your strokes and plays the model again from the first stroke, so you can compare once more.

The ＜ and ＞ buttons at the bottom of the practice screen move to the previous and next character in gojūon order. ね comes right after ぬ, and わ right after る, れ and ろ, so writing them in a row makes the loop-or-no-loop contrast easy to notice. For め, は and ほ, open the character from the chart.

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 are not included. The model character comes in large, medium and small, and you can turn on a cross guide. A speaker button plays the reading of the character. It is a one-time purchase with no ads and no in-app purchases. On iPhone it runs in landscape.

Look-alike katakana are covered in シ vs ツ and ソ vs ン. For a first session, see Getting Started with StudyX Japanese Letters Tracer.