な, in hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

, or ナ in katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

, is one of the Japanese kana

Kana

Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...

, which each represent one mora

Mora (linguistics)

Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...

. The hiragana な is made in four strokes, the katakana ナ two. Both represent [na]. な and ナ originate from the man'yōgana

Manyogana

is an ancient writing system that employs Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. The date of the earliest usage of this type of kana is not clear, but it was in use since at least the mid seventh century...

 奈. な is used as part of the okurigana

Okurigana

are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to disambiguate kanji with multiple readings...

 for the plain negative forms of Japanese verbs, and several negative forms of adjectives.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...	Katakana Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
Normal n- (な行 na-gyō)	Na	な	ナ
	Naa Nā	なあ なー	ナア ナー

Stroke order