Getting more serious about learning Japanese and starting over with the
syllabaries. In Katakana, "u" is written in three strokes. Is there a reason
why strokes two and three can't be combined? Maybe it's my Western prejudice,
but it makes more sense to me to draw the first stroke, and then come _up_ on
the left, then across and down, rather than lifting the pen after coming down
twice in a row.

I'm willing to bet there's a historical reason, or something related to using
a brush vs a pen.
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katakana stroke-order
Is there a specific reason for there to be three strokes in Katakana "u" versus two strokes?
Short answer: Both Hiragana and Katakana come from kanji, and kanji and its
stroke order originated in China. So the stroke order for kana mimics that of
the kanji. You could make the same argument for ワ, but that's not how its
kanji origin works.

For reference, here are the origins:

![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VR1FK.png)  
![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sg4Q1.png)
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