He (kana)

へ, in hiragana, or ヘ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which represents one mora. The sound is the only sound that is written almost identically in hiragana and katakana and therefore confusable according to the Unicode Standard. In the Sakhalin dialect of the Ainu language, ヘ can be written as small ㇸ to represent a final after an sound (エㇸ ).

It is usually pronounced with the aspirate before its vowel. It is also often used as a grammatical particle indicating direction, which makes only the vowel sound .

Though the two forms へ and ヘ are usually rendered with a small difference between them, in order to match better with the appearance of other hiragana or katakana characters, they can often be rendered identically. A reader is not expected to distinguish one from the other without contextual clues.

Forms	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana	Example words (with kanji)
Normal h- (は行 ha-gyō)	he	へ	ヘ	へび hebi 蛇 snake へる heru 減る abate/decrease へんか henka 変化 change/modification へい hei 塀 wall へいあん heian 平安 tranquility
	hei hee hē	へい, へぃ へえ, へぇ へー	ヘイ, ヘィ ヘエ, ヘェ ヘー
Addition dakuten b- (ば行 ba-gyō)	be	べ	ベ	かべ kabe 壁 wall べんきょう benkyō 勉強 studying ベッド beddo bed なんべい nanbei 南米 South America
	bei bee bē	べい, べぃ べえ, べぇ べー	ベイ, ベィ ベエ, ベェ ベー
Addition handakuten p- (ぱ行 pa-gyō)	pe	ぺ	ペ	いっぺん ippen 一辺 on a side ペルー perū Peru
	pei pee pē	ぺい, ぺぃ ぺえ, ぺぇ ぺー	ペイ, ペィ ペエ, ペェ ペー

Stroke order

The stroke order is similar between hiragana and katakana.

Animated stroke order in writing ヘ Stroke order in writing ヘ

Diagram of stroke order in writing ヘ Stroke order in writing ヘ

Other communicative representations

• Full Braille representation

へ / ヘ in Japanese Braille
へ / ヘ he	べ / ベ be	ぺ / ペ pe	へい / ヘー hē/hei	べい / ベー bē/bei	ぺい / ペー pē/pei
Template:Braille cell	Template:Braille cell	Template:Braille cell	Template:Braille cell	Template:Braille cell	Template:Braille cell

• Computer encodings

See Also

• Japanese particles: へ