KanjiPadHow to Write Please in Japanese — お願いします
お願いします
“Please” in Japanese is お願いします, onegai shimasu — o-ne-ga-i shi-ma-su. It is the first phrase on this list that mixes scripts: five hiragana around a single kanji, 願, and thirty strokes in total, nineteen of them in the kanji alone.
There is no all-purpose “please” in Japanese the way there is in English. お願いします is the request itself — “I ask this of you” — so it stands as a whole sentence: hand over a form, say お願いします, and you have asked politely for it to be dealt with. It is also what you say when someone offers you something you want.
For asking for a specific thing or action, Japanese uses ください instead: 水をください for “water, please”, and 待ってください — the て-form plus ください — for “please wait”.
お願い is a request or a wish, built from the verb 願う (negau, “to wish for”) with the honorific prefix お. します is “I do”. So the phrase is literally “I make a request” — the deference sits in the grammar, not in a word meaning “please”.
Writing お願いします, character by character
30 strokes in all. Each animation plays once — press ↻ to watch it again.
- お1
Stroke order
The honorific prefix. Three strokes; the small tick at the top right is written last.
- 願2
Stroke order
The kanji for wish or request — 19 strokes, read ねが here and ガン in compounds. It is 原 (10 strokes) on the left, finished before the 9 strokes of 頁 on the right.
- い3
Stroke order
The okurigana: the kana tail that finishes the reading ねがい.
- し4
Stroke order
A single stroke, top to bottom with a hook — the whole kana in one motion.
- ま5
Stroke order
Three strokes: two horizontals, then the vertical with its loop.
- す6
Stroke order
Two strokes. The u of します is barely voiced in speech — shi-mas.
Write it yourself
Reading stroke order is not the same as owning it. Draw お願いします one character at a time and see whether your hand agrees with the animation.
Variants and politeness
Which “please” to use when:
- お願いしますonegai shimasu
- The general request. Safe with anyone; use it when the thing asked for is obvious from context.
- よろしくお願いしますyoroshiku onegai shimasu
- The workhorse of Japanese social life: on meeting someone, starting a project, ending an email.
- お願いいたしますonegai itashimasu
- More formal still — business email and customer-facing speech.
- くださいkudasai
- Attaches to a noun + を, or to a verb’s て-form: 水をください, 待ってください.
- どうぞdōzo
- The opposite direction — “please, go ahead” when you are the one offering.
Common mistakes
- Bolting “please” onto a sentenceEnglish adds “please” to any request. Japanese changes the verb instead — 待ってください, not a sentence plus a stray word.
- Confusing どうぞ with お願いしますどうぞ offers, お願いします asks. Saying どうぞ when you want something reverses who is doing the favour.
- Writing 願 with the halves out of order願 is built left half first: all ten strokes of 原 are finished before the nine of 頁 begin. Building the two halves in parallel is the usual beginner error.
More everyday phrases
Practise お願いします stroke by stroke — the app grades every stroke as you write it.