All About Katakana

Katakana カタカナ chart

Each of the 46 Katakana characters represents a syllable or "sound cluster": A I U E O

• a ア イ ウ エ オ
• k カ キ ク ケ コ
• s サ シ ス セ ソ
• t タ チ ツ テ ト
• n ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ
• h ハ ヒ フ ヘ ホ
• m マ ミ ム メ モ
• y ヤ ユ ヨ
• r ラ リ ル レ ロ
• w ワ ヲ
• n ン

Resources for further reading:

• How to learn Japanese
• The time it takes to learn Japanese properly

The 46 Katakana characters are shown in the table above in 'alphabetical' or 'dictionary order'. In this table, the characters are read from left to right, beginning from the top row. So, ア-イ-ウ-エ-オ (a-i-u-e-o) then カ-キ-ク-ケ-オ (ka-ki-ku-ke-ko) and so on.

Reading Katakana カタカナ

You can easily read the table above by learning the vowel order, ア イ ウ エ オ (a i u e o), shown on the top row, and the order of the syllables in the first column on the left: カ サ タ ナ ハ マ ヤ ラ ワ (ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa n). Now, you simply combine the consonants of the first column, with each of the vowels (except the special 'n') - and you can read out the Katakana table whenever you need:

A brief history of Katakana カタカナ

Perhaps the best way to describe how Katakana came about is think of it as an abbreviation of a much complex Kanji (Chinese) character. Early writers "abbreviated" Kanji by reducing the stroke counts - what they did was take PART of the Kanji character, which was often further abbreviated and simplified. These "abbreviations" became the Katakana syllables which are used for foreign words and for sound effects. So, when you spell your name in Japanese, you need to use Katakana. Give it a try!

Learning to Write Katakana カタカナ

Let's start learning how to write the first row, which are all vowels: ア イ ウ エ オ (a i u e o). One of the best ways to learn and to read Katakana is to practice writing them, and learning the proper order of the strokes helps! The five vowels sound like this:

That's it for today! If you want more lessons on Katakana, check out our full Rocket Japanese course here.

To get started on the other set of Japanese phonetic characters, Hiragana, check out this free lesson.

Here are a few recommended Japanese lessons to try next!

• Saying No in Japanese.
• At a Japanese restaurant? Try ordering in Japanese!
• There's lots of wonderful sights in Japan. Let's talk about sightseeing in Japanese.

Mata kondo!

Sayaka Matsuura: Rocket Japanese