ぬ and ヌ

Pronunciation

“NU” sound in "Noodle".

ぬ Memorization Story

The sound is convenient, because the hiragana clearly looks like twisting noodles, with a single chopstick speared into them from above.

ヌ Memorization Story

The katakana is the half-shot of our soup bowl from ス, except that this is a bowl of ramen NOODLES, and there is a noodle that has slipped out stuck to the side of the bowl.

Writing

 
 

Keep in mind that it is okay for the first stroke in the hiragana ぬ to pass THROUGH both sides of the loop in the second stroke, though it appears to stop WITHIN the loop before going through in many computer fonts, as we’ll see in the next section. Cutting to the left sharply at the bottom of the first stroke into the first loop can help balance this one nicely. Similar to what we did with お.

 

Font Examples

ぬ  ヌ

ぬ  ヌ

ぬ  ヌ

ぬ  ヌ

ぬ  ヌ

Typing

Hiragana ぬ
Type the letters “nu”.

Katakana ヌ
Type "nu" and press the F7 key, or press spacebar until the katakana appears. 

Word(s)

カヌー

canoe

いぬ

dog

たぬき

tanuki (Japanese racoon dog)

 

Historical Form

Hiragana
奴→ぬ

HISTORICAL VERSION

Katakana
奴→ヌ

PART BORROWED

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