O (kana)


Hiragana
Katakana
Transliteration: o
Hiragana Man'yōgana: 於
Katakana Man'yōgana: 於
Unicode: U+3049
kana gojūon
n wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a
sokuon wi ri mi hi ni chi shi ki i
dakuten ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku u
chōonpu 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 [o].

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

Contents

Derivation

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

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).

Stroke order

The hiragana お is made with three strokes:

  1. A horizontal line from left to right.
  2. 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.
  3. A small curved stroke on the right.

The katakana オ is made with three strokes:

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

Other communicative representations

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