Katakana
A special thanks to the following who donated their time and effort to make the Katakana Pages possible: Spaztick - images and most mnemonics; Tanner Becker AKA Ashitaka - HTML coding and organizing; Pikctsach - HTML coding and organizing
KATAKANA LESSONS:
Katakana is very similar to Hiragana; you should be able to pick it up without too much trouble. Actually [begin: Clay's confession] I have never studied Katakana. But I can read it just fine. What do I mean - you ask? Well, in real written Japanese, Katakana is used very sparcely unless the subject has a lot of foreign words or names. So I picked up Katakana when I needed it . That is, when I came across katakana I would look it up. Because I read a lot, I was able to learn Katakana without specifically studying it! Sounds like I am trying to discourage you from studying, huh? Ok I will stop. Gambatte!
There are tons of FREE resources on the web. I encourage you to use them. Or if you really want to spend money, please take a look at the Kana section of our online shop.
| An Introduction: |
Katakana is known as the more 'masculine' of the Japanese writing systems. This is because it is rigid with sharp turns. Katakana is mainly used for foreign loan-words. For example: Cola is コーラ ko-ra . You will notice the dash in the middle of コ ko and ラ ra . This makes the コ ko longer in sound. If this is written in Hiragana, it would look as such: こうら koura . (In Hiragana the う u lengthens the previous character) Other than that, Hiragana and Katakana work and sound in the same way.
NOTE: You will need to be able to view Japanese Characters - Click here to find out how
About the Sounds: EASY! THESE SOUNDS ARE THE SAME AS THE HIRAGANA SOUNDS! |
Most sounds in Japanese are found also in English. Unlike English, the 'letters' in Japanese only have one sound, with a few exceptions that will be mentioned later on. Please click on the sound files to get a feel for the sounds. The most important to master are the vowels (the first row). The sounds are all found in English. Please repeat the sounds many times. If you spend a few moments looking at the chart, you should be able to see a clear pattern (each column has the same vowel sound and each row has the same consonant sound. ) . The 4 letters in red are the only ones that deviate from the pattern.
 ア a - |
イ i - |
ウ u - |
エ e - |
オ o - |
| カ ka -
|
キ ki -
|
ク ku -
|
ケ ke -
|
コ ko -
|
| サ sa -
|
シ shi -
|
ス su -
|
セ se -
|
ソ so -
|
| タ ta -
|
チ chi
- |
ツ tsu
- |
テ te -
|
ト to -
|
| ナ na -
|
ニ ni -
|
ヌ nu -
|
ネ ne -
|
ノ no -
|
| ハ ha -
|
ヒ hi -
|
フ fu
- |
ヘ he -
|
ホ ho -
|
| マ ma -
|
ミ mi -
|
ム mu -
|
メ me -
|
モ mo -
|
| ヤ ya - |
ユ yu - |
ヨ yo - |
||
| ラ ra - |
リ ri - |
ル ru - |
レ re - |
ロ ro - |
| ワ wa -
|
ヲ wo
- (This is almost never used. Usually the hiragana
is used as a particle - を) |
|||
| ン n - |
These are all the basic Katakana letters. The rest are simply combinations of two Katakana. (For Example: to make the ' sha ' sound - add シ ( shi ) + ヤ ( ya ) = シャ ( sha ) - Notice how the second letter is smaller; but we will look at this later)
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