So (kana)

"ソ" redirects here. Not to be confused with N (kana) ("ン").

so
hiragana katakana
transliteration	so
translit. with dakuten	zo
hiragana origin	曽
katakana origin	曽
Man'yōgana	宗 祖 素 蘇 十 所 則 曾 僧 増 憎 衣 背 苑
Voiced Man'yōgana	俗 序 叙 賊 存 茹 鋤
spelling kana	そろばんのソ (Soroban no "so")
Note: These Man'yōgana originally represented syllables with one of two different vowel sounds, which merged in later pronunciation

そ, in hiragana, or ソ, in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. Both represent [so]. The version of this character used by computer fonts does not match the handwritten form that most native Japanese writers use. The native way is shown here as the alternative form.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal s- (さ行 sa-gyō)	so	そ	ソ
	sou soo sō	そう, そぅ そお, そぉ そー	ソウ, ソゥ ソオ, ソォ ソー
Addition dakuten z- (ざ行 za-gyō)	zo	ぞ	ゾ
	zou zoo zō	ぞう, ぞぅ ぞお, ぞぉ ぞー	ゾウ, ゾゥ ゾオ, ゾォ ゾー

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing そ

Stroke order in writing ソ

Stroke order in writing そ

Stroke order in writing ソ

Alternative form

Alternate Hiragana shape

Other communicative representations

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
そろばんのソ Soroban no "So"

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-2456 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

そ / ソ in Japanese Braille
そ / ソ so	ぞ / ゾ zo	そう / ソー sō	ぞう / ゾー zō	Other kana based on Braille そ
				しょ / ショ sho	じょ / ジョ jo	しょう / ショー shō	じょう / ジョー jō

• Computer encodings

Character information

Preview	そ		ソ		ｿ		ぞ		ゾ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER SO		KATAKANA LETTER SO		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SO		HIRAGANA LETTER ZO		KATAKANA LETTER ZO
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	12381	U+305D	12477	U+30BD	65407	U+FF7F	12382	U+305E	12478	U+30BE
UTF-8	227 129 157	E3 81 9D	227 130 189	E3 82 BD	239 189 191	EF BD BF	227 129 158	E3 81 9E	227 130 190	E3 82 BE
Numeric character reference	そ	そ	ソ	ソ	ｿ	ｿ	ぞ	ぞ	ゾ	ゾ
Shift JIS	130 187	82 BB	131 92	83 5C	191	BF	130 188	82 BC	131 93	83 5D
EUC-JP	164 189	A4 BD	165 189	A5 BD	142 191	8E BF	164 190	A4 BE	165 190	A5 BE
GB 18030	164 189	A4 BD	165 189	A5 BD	132 49 152 55	84 31 98 37	164 190	A4 BE	165 190	A5 BE
EUC-KR / UHC	170 189	AA BD	171 189	AB BD			170 190	AA BE	171 190	AB BE
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)	198 193	C6 C1	199 85	C7 55			198 194	C6 C2	199 86	C7 56
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)	199 68	C7 44	199 185	C7 B9			199 69	C7 45	199 186	C7 BA

Character information

Preview	㋞
Unicode name	CIRCLED KATAKANA SO
Encodings	decimal	hex
Unicode	13022	U+32DE
UTF-8	227 139 158	E3 8B 9E
Numeric character reference	㋞	㋞

References

• The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary (Andrew Nelson, John H Haig) Tuttle Publishing 1999