かきじゅん — Kakijun, or Stroke Order is the order in which you must draw hiragana for it to be correct.

The video below shows the correct way to right Hiragana A - N.
Just remember that traditionally, Japanese is written from top-down, & read right-to-left.

If the Video doesn’t show up the permanent link is here: http://www.ehow.com/video_4498380_write-japanese-alphabet-hiragana-part.html

I also found a Java-based application that will draw individual characters by stroke & at whatever speed you like.
http://www.geocities.com/takasugishinji/japanese/hiragana_stroke.html

So far we’ve covered 20 of the 46 basic Hiragana.

あいうえお   a i u e o
かきくけこ   ka ki ku ke ko
さしすせそ   sa shi* su se so
たちつてと   ta chi* tsu* te to

** Keep in mind these are irregular, they differ from the regular “aiueo” pattern.

If you don’t have a chart handy, how do you know what order they go?
Well, in Japanese elementary school, they teach the little 1st graders (about 6-7 years old) this little phrase:

A ka sa ta na,    Ha ma ya ra wa
…which is the 1st column of the chart if you look at the whole thing.

Ready for hiragana part 3?
Read more »