こんにちにゃあぁ～！Welcome to Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!! Online, the Blog, written before a live studio audience in not-so-sunny [ｕｎｄｉｓｃｌｏｓｅｄ　ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ]!  We’re Kiki and Koko, your helpful guides to Japanese language and culture. The time has come, friends. It’s time to write 【なにぬねの】! While you could just take a look and attempt to suss things out, there’s a proper way to write them that actually helps you write them more efficiently and legibly. While our favourite hiragana are ゑ and ゐ, 【ぬ】is definitely in our top 5. We mean, look at it!  【ぬ】 is so curly, and it feels fancy because you can see it in a lot of classical Japanese negative verbs like 「知しらぬ」loosely translated as 「 to not know」which you’ll see in a lot in sayings, idioms, and expressions. But, that’s a lesson for another day. After this lesson (and a bit of repetition), you’ll say:「知しらぬ」no more!!?

So, of course, we appreciate those who have been here since lesson 1, but perhaps, you have no idea what’s going on, what’s a hiragana? or what are these squiggles I’m looking at? All very valid questions, questions we exist to answer!! Just take a quick peek at this article: How Do You Write in Japanese? | Japanese Writing System Demystified then pop back here for the lesson! But, maybe you know what hiragana is, now, and you’re not sure why you need this whole stroke order business. Never fear, we have the answers you so desperately need:🤔Do I REALLY need to learn Stroke Order? | 6 Reasons Why {or Why not?} | What is Stroke Order? 

書きましょう！Let’s write!!

Whew, now that we have you caught up, it’s time to bring in the one and only QUIZBO™, the quizzing computer who also helps us by showing how each hiragana is written. And, what better way to show this than the most classic and advanced methodology known to mankind: arrows.

It’s simple in theory, but it’s very effective to help you suss out these characters. And, no worries, you don’t just have computers to assist, we’ll give you helpful hints along the way.

How to use stroke order

Before we properly begin, we figured it would be best to give you a quick overview on how to read these diagrams. For each character, there’s mostly 3-4 strokes that are written in a specific order. Each number signifies which stroke should come first. Start where the circled number begins and write the stroke in the direction in which the arrow is pointing. If you want to see what each step looks like and what yours should look like at that stage, then take a look at the squares on the right. They squares are ordered up to down and right to left in Japanese order. And, that’s the whole of it!

Take out your pencils and paper, your tablets and styli, Let’s write hiragana! 

Let’s NihonGO!!

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints:
Remember 【た】? Then you’re already halfway there! But, you’ll notice in strokes three and four, there’s a little extra line that can trail off, but it’s not completely necessary. Though, it just gives you a good example of the motion you should use, and it’s something that you’ll either see very prominently in handwriting or not at all. Just follow the guide, and you should be just fine~

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints:
Remember 【こ】? There’s a lot of throwbacks this lesson! 【こ】 is about 66% of this hiragana if we have our maths correct. Strokes two and three have the same motion where you can either have a trailing off area from the motion or just quick lines, depending on the style. You see the trailing off that happens on stroke one? It’s perfectly fine to leave that off or keep it as well. 

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints:
Take a look at this twisty noodle!! Some may look at some fonts and assume the twirl is a circle attached, but just follow the stroke and see it’s a beautiful twisty curl. This one might be a bit to get the proportions correct. Some handwriting has the bump go a bit farther out, sometimes lower, but as long as you stick to the stroke order, no matter how tight or loose, it’s easily recognisable. 

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints:
Another exquisite curly. This, again, takes some proportions that can vary a little. Sometimes you’ll see the second stroke with a very wide zig-zag, and other times it’ll seem very tight and close. Your best bet is just to try to copy what you see here, and emulate the stroke. 

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints:
And, yet again, we’re left with a simple stroke hiragana… In all of the time you’ll have saved with only one stroke, you can try to review your reading or practise writing these words with our simple digital flashcard set! 

Whoa-whoa! That’s「なにぬねの」!! Have a little celebration, you’ve learnt quite a lot!! Now, you might not have all of these memorised the first few times you write them, but that’s why we’re here! You can come back as often as you like to practise them as many times as you like, 25 hours a day, 8 days a week. (Pfff, we’re not confined to the laws of time…) And, don’t forget to go back and test yourself on previous hiragana! Keeping them fresh in your memory will help put them in your long-term memory. Oh! And, to make it more interesting, you can use these vocabulary words, but whatever method works best for you. And, hey, if you ever do have any methods that really work for you, feel free to share them with us!

In the meantime, we want to let you know that if you’ve been here since あ, we’re proud of how much you’ve learnt! And, maybe you’re just joining us now, in which case, it’s still very impressive to know even just five hiragana! That’s five more than what you knew before!! You’re expanding your mind to new places with new skills, and we hope to be able to continue to help you achieve even your loftiest learning goals.

Read, Write, and Revise with Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!!:
                        

We hope this was/will be helpful for you on your Japanese learning journey!
We really appreciate that you’ve chosen to learn with us.
Until next time, thank you for visiting! We can’t wait to see you again!
♡Kiki+Koko