Ni (kana)

に, in hiragana, or ニ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. The hiragana is written in three strokes, while the katakana in two. Both represent /ni/ although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is [nʲi].

ni
hiragana katakana
transliteration	ni
hiragana origin	仁
katakana origin	仁
Man'yōgana	二 人 日 仁 爾 迩 尼 耳 柔 丹 荷 似 煮 煎
spelling kana	日本のニ (Nippon no ni)
unicode	U+306B, U+30CB
braille

Notably, the katakana (ニ) is functionally identical to the kanji for two (二), pronounced the same way, and written similarly.

に is used as a particle, as well as a word fragment. As a particle it generally expresses direction, with a similar function to the English "to."

i.e. Ton wa, Furansu "ni" ikimashita. Ton went "to" France.

Pan wa, Ton "ni" agemashita. Bread was given "to" Ton.

However, in clauses mentioning time, it is used as "at." For example: Roku ji ni shimashita. (I) did it at 6 o'clock.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal n- (な行 na-gyō)	ni	に	ニ
	nii nī	にい, にぃ にー	ニイ, ニィ ニー
Addition yōon ny- (にゃ行 nya-gyō)	nya	にゃ	ニャ
	nyaa nyā, nyah	にゃあ にゃー	ニャア ニャー
	nyu	にゅ	ニュ
	nyuu nyū	にゅう にゅー	ニュウ ニュー
	nyo	にょ	ニョ
	nyou nyoo nyō, nyoh	にょう にょお にょー	ニョウ ニョオ ニョー

Other additional forms
Form (ny-) Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana (nya) (にゃ) (ニャ) (nyi) (にぃ) (ニィ) (nyu) (にゅ) (ニュ) nye にぇ ニェ (nyo) (にょ) (ニョ)

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing に

Stroke order in writing ニ

The hiragana に is made with three strokes:

1. A vertical stroke from top to bottom.
2. A short, horizontal stroke to the upper right of the first stroke, going from left to right.
3. Another short, horizontal stroke at the bottom right of the first stroke, going from left to right.

The katakana ニ is made with two strokes:

1. At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right.
2. Another, longer horizontal stroke under the first stroke

Other communicative representations

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
日本のニ Nippon no "Ni"	▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-123 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

に / ニ in Japanese Braille		N + Yōon braille
に / ニ ni	にい / ニー nī	にゃ / ニャ nya	にゃあ / ニャー nyā	にゅ / ニュ nyu	にゅう / ニュー nyū	にょ / ニョ nyo	にょう / ニョー nyō

• Computer encodings

Character information

Preview	に		ニ		ﾆ		㋥
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER NI		KATAKANA LETTER NI		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER NI		CIRCLED KATAKANA NI
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12395	U+306B	12491	U+30CB	65414	U+FF86	13029	U+32E5
UTF-8	227 129 171	E3 81 AB	227 131 139	E3 83 8B	239 190 134	EF BE 86	227 139 165	E3 8B A5
Numeric character reference	に	に	ニ	ニ	ﾆ	ﾆ	㋥	㋥
Shift JIS[1]	130 201	82 C9	131 106	83 6A	198	C6
EUC-JP[2]	164 203	A4 CB	165 203	A5 CB	142 198	8E C6
GB 18030[3]	164 203	A4 CB	165 203	A5 CB	132 49 153 52	84 31 99 34
EUC-KR[4] / UHC[5]	170 203	AA CB	171 203	AB CB
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[6]	198 207	C6 CF	199 99	C7 63
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[7]	199 82	C7 52	199 199	C7 C7

See also

Japanese Grammar

References

Handbook of Japanese Grammar - Masahiro Tanimori (Tuttle 1994)

1. Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
2. Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
3. Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
4. Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
5. Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
6. Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
7. van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.