Letter 14 of 26

The letter N in braille

N is dots 1, 3, 4 and 5.

Dots 1-3-4-5

Unicode ⠝ — U+281D

How to recognise it

Dots 1, 3, 4 and 5. n is d plus dot 3 and is one of the busier cells; readers usually recognise it by the gap at dot 2 rather than by counting.

How this cell is built

N belongs to decade 2. It is the letter d with dot 3 added — the same transformation applied to every letter in this decade.

ddot 3n

Easily confused with

These letters differ from N by a single dot, which is where reading errors actually happen. Drill them against each other rather than in alphabetical order.

Practice words

Each word below starts with N, written in Grade 1 so every letter has its own cell.

not

new

name

In Grade 2 this letter is also a word

Standing alone, N means “not”. Inside a longer word it is just the letter n. See the contraction reference for the full list.