O (kana)

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Hiragana

Katakana

U+3049

	kana - gojūon
n	wa	ra	ya	ma	ha	na	ta	sa	ka	a
tsu	wi	ri		mi	hi	ni	chi	shi	ki	i
゛		ru	yu	mu	fu	nu	tsu	su	ku	u
ー	we	re		me	he	ne	te	se	ke	e
	wo	ro	yo	mo	ho	no	to	so	ko	o

In Japanese writing, the kana お (hiragana) and オ (katakana) occupy the fifth place, between え and か, in the modern Gojūon (五十音) system of collating kana. In the Iroha, they occupy the 27th, between の and く. In the table at right (ordered by columns, from right to left), お lies in the first column (あ行, "column A") and the fifth row (お段, "row O"). Both represent IPA) /o/ (help·info)

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō)	o	お	オ
Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō)	ou oo, oh ō	おう, おぅおお, おぉおー	オウ, オゥオオ, オォオー

1 Derivation
2 Variant forms
3 Stroke order
4 Other communicative representations

[edit] Derivation

お and オ originate, via man'yōgana, from the kanji 於.

[edit] Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぉ, ォ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as フォ (fo).

[edit] Stroke order

The hiragana お is made with three strokes:

A horizontal line from left to right.
A stroke consisting of a vertical line, a small diagonal line going upwards and to the left, and an open curve heading right and downwards.
A small curved stroke on the right.

The katakana オ is made with three strokes:

At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right.
A downward vertical stroke cutting through the first stroke, with a small hook at the end facing left.
At the intersection of the first two strokes, a diagonal line going downwards and to the left.