Cursive U (Capital & Lowercase)

How to Write a Capital U in Cursive

1. Begin with a small hook. Start just below the top line on the left. Make a tiny curl that rises to touch the top line, like the start of a wave.
2. Slant down to the baseline. From the hook, pull a long stroke down and to the left at your normal slant.
3. Round the bottom. Turn smoothly on the baseline. The bottom of the U should be a soft curve, never a sharp V point.
4. Climb back to the top line. Swing up to the right until you reach the top line. Keep this side parallel to the first one.
5. Retrace and exit. Come straight back down over the right side to the baseline and finish with a short upturn that can carry on into the next letter.

How to Write a Lowercase u in Cursive

1. Swing up to the midline. From the baseline, or the end of the previous letter, make a slanted upstroke to the dashed midline.
2. Come down and cup. Pull straight down to the baseline and round off into a small cup.
3. Up to the midline again. Swing back up to the midline. Both peaks of the u should end at the same height.
4. Retrace the second side. Come straight down over the stroke you just made. Don't leave a loop or a gap between the up and down lines.
5. Finish with an exit. Round off at the baseline and rise to the right, ready to join the next letter.

Common Mistakes With Cursive U

The u is easy to write but surprisingly easy to misread. These are the usual reasons.

• Pointed bottoms. Sharp corners at the baseline turn the u into a v or a w. Keep each turn round.
• Adding an extra cup. In a hurry, people often write three cups instead of two, and the u becomes a w. Count the peaks: a u has two.
• Peaks at different heights. If one side of the u is taller, it can look like an e-i or a stray letter. Both should touch the midline.
• Looping the second stroke. A loop on the way down makes the u read like an e followed by an i. Retrace instead.
• A capital U without the hook. Skipping the starting curl makes the capital look like a big lowercase u. The hook is what marks it as a capital.
• Mixing it up with n. A u has its curves at the bottom, an n has humps at the top. Students who rush sometimes flip them.

How Cursive U Connects to Other Letters

In this traditional style the capital U joins the letter after it. The exit stroke at the bottom of the retraced right side rises straight into the next letter, as in Utah and Uncle, so there's no need to lift your pencil.

The lowercase u joins on both sides from the baseline, which makes it one of the smoothest letters in a word. In music the u sits between m and s with no breaks at all.

After o, w, v and b the connecting stroke leaves at the midline, so it slides across and dips straight into the first downstroke of the u. Look at out: the bridge from the o runs along the midline and becomes the left side of the u.

Copy and Paste Cursive U Symbols

These U symbols come from Unicode's script alphabets. They look handwritten and paste into most apps, but each one stands alone, so a word made from them won't flow like joined cursive.

• 𝒰𝓃𝒾𝓆𝓊ℯCopy
• 𝒰𝓈Copy
• 𝒰𝓁𝓉𝓇𝒶Copy
• 𝒰𝓅 𝒜𝓃𝒹 𝒜𝓌𝒶𝓎Copy

Words That Start With U

Since the u only uses the up, down and cup motions, it's a great letter for building rhythm. Mix starting u's with words where u sits in the middle.

• Short words: up, us, use, urn, ugly, unit, undo, upon
• Longer words: under, umbrella, unicorn, until, useful, uniform, unusual, upset
• Middle u: music, sun, blue, house, about, cloud, mug, jump
• Names and places: Uma, Ulysses, Ursula, Utah, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Utrecht

Write unusual and uniform slowly. Words with several u's and n's side by side are the best test of whether your cups and humps really look different.