を (wo/o) – Hiragana

Pronunciation

– Pronounced as the Japanese ‘o’, however is sometimes pronounced ‘wo’ for emphasis, and is used commonly in some dialects.

About

を, in hiragana, or ヲ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora.

This kana is used almost exclusively as a particle; as such, the katakana form (ヲ) is fairly uncommon in everyday language — mostly used as a stand-in for its hiragana counterpart in texts that need to be written entirely in katakana.

Generally, it is pronounced ‘o’ although some dialects retain the pronunciation ‘wo’, which is also often used in songs. It is also occasionally pronounced this way when stressing the particle, e.g. to clarify when someone misunderstands what has been said.

It is transliterated variably as ‘o’ or ‘wo’, with the former being faithful to standard pronunciation but the latter avoiding confusion with お and オ.

Mnemonics

Mnemonic 1: An ice skater steps out onto the ice to dance a ‘waltz’.