Character	老
Meaning	old man; old age; grow old
Grade	Taught in grade 4 of Japanese elementary school
Radical	老 (oi · oikanmuri)
Stroke count	6
Unicode	U+8001

老 Practice writing this character Make a free printable tracing worksheet for 老 and other kanji. →

Press Play to watch 老 being written one stroke at a time, in the correct order and direction. Use Next stroke / Prev stroke to move through the 6 strokes yourself, turn on Stroke numbers to see where each stroke starts, and change the speed to slow things down. Writing kanji in the correct stroke order makes the shape come out balanced and is essential for natural handwriting.

Related tools

• Kanji Practice Sheets — printable tracing worksheets for kanji and kana.
• Furigana Generator — add reading hints to any Japanese text.
• Stroke Order index — browse every jōyō kanji, hiragana and katakana.
• 「老」の書き順・読み方 — this kanji on the Japanese site (readings, radical, example words).

Stroke-order data from KanjiVG © Ulrich Apel, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Meanings and school grades from KANJIDIC2 © James William Breen and The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.