zo / ぞ
The last of the Z row — そ with two tiny ticks (゛) becomes 'zo'. Anchors the elephant, the word 'mystery', and the polite invitation どうぞ.
Pronunciation
The character ぞ represents the syllable 'zo', a soft 'z' followed by 'o'. It is そ with the dakuten that voices 's' to 'z'.
ぞ is そ (so) plus the dakuten ゛. It anchors 象 (zou, "elephant"), 謎 (nazo, "mystery / riddle"), 雑煮 (zouni, the New Year's mochi soup), and the universal polite どうぞ (douzo, "please go ahead / here you go"). It also appears as the assertive sentence-final particle ぞ (やるぞ! "I'm going to do it!") — like ぜ, slightly rough and predominantly masculine.
How to write ぞ
Trace ぞ on the canvas at the top of the page. Animated arrows show each stroke's direction; trace along them and the stroke fills in. Each numbered step below explains what that stroke does.
Write そ exactly: a single flowing stroke shaped like a zig-zag. Start at the upper middle, sweep down and to the right, zig back to the upper left, then sweep down and to the lower right in a smooth diagonal, ending with a small flick. One continuous motion.
Add the dakuten (゛): two small tick marks at the upper right. Strokes 2 and 3 are the two ticks, written quickly above the body.
Origin
Hiragana ぞ shares its base shape with そ, which evolved from the cursive form of the kanji 曽 (sou, "former / once"). The kanji's stacked elements compressed into the single zig-zag stroke of そ; the dakuten ゛ voiced /so/ into /zo/.
Common words starting with ぞ
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing ぞ by hand — the top row shows the stroke order to trace, then fill the blank squares.
Lock it into memory
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