Katakana
If you are unfamiliar with romaji, please first check out Introduction: Romaji. I also recommend first taking a look at Hiragana (you’ll see why shortly).
The Basics
Katakana is fairly similar to Hiragana, so if you know one, learning the other is easier. The first five are:
| ア | イ | ウ | エ | オ |
Similarly, the next five are:
| カ | キ | ク | ケ | コ |
Do you see what I mean? The characters are different, but the romaji is the same. Katakana is used for writing foreign words while Hiragana is for native words. Technically, even without of kanji these two can take you pretty far.
Katakana Chart
Below is a chart with the Katakana. Remember, at this point the goal is not to memorize or study them, just look at them and find some patterns.
| ア | イ | ウ | エ | オ |
| カ | キ | ク | ケ | コ |
| サ | シ | ス | セ | ソ |
| タ | シ | ツ | テ | ト |
| ナ | ニ | ヌ | ネ | ノ |
| ハ | ヒ | フ | ヘ | ホ |
| マ | ミ | ム | メ | モ |
| ヤ | ユ | ヨ | ||
| ラ | リ | ル | レ | ロ |
| ワ | ヲ | |||
| ン |
As you can see, the romaji for katakana is identical to the romaji for hiragana. Even some characters are similar like “ka” and “he”. One way to easily distinguish katakana from hiragana, is by its sharp angles. If you look at the chart above and compare it to the hiragana chart, you will notice that hiragana is very rounded. On the other hand, katakana has more sharp edges and less smooth curves.
Tentens
Here are the additional katakana with tentens.
| ガ | ギ | グ | ゲ | ゴ |
| ザ | ジ | ズ | ゼ | ゾ |
| ダ | ヂ | ヅ | デ | ド |
| バ | ビ | ブ | ベ | ボ |
The “k” becomes a “g”, the “s” becomes “z”, the “t” becomes “d”, and the “h” becomes “b”. Some from the D row are quite rarely used, especially the “di” and “dzu”.
Maru
Here is the H row with marus.
| パ | ピ | プ | ペ | ポ |
Ya, Yu, Yo
Remember the ya, yu, yo combinations from hiragana? Katakana has them as well and they follow the same pattern.
| キャ | キュ | キョ |
| シャ | シュ | ショ |
| チャ | チュ | チョ |
| ニャ | ニュ | ニョ |
| ヒャ | ヒュ | ヒョ |
| ミャ | ミュ | ミョ |
| リャ | リュ | リョ |
| ギャ | ギュ | ギョ |
| ジャ | ジュ | ジョ |
| ビャ | ビュ | ビョ |
| ピャ | ピュ | ピョ |
Chiisai Tsu
The chiisai tsu acts the same way in Katakana as it does in Hiragana. When you add it before a consonant, so any character except one from the first row, it doubles the consonant. Here is an example in Katakana.
エッフェルとう
Ef-fe-ru-to-u
Eiffel Tower
Above is the katakana for Eiffel Tower. This shows the small tsu in use, doubling the “f” sound. Without of the small tsu before the fu, it would have been “Eferutou”.
Extra
The previous example also demonstrates some extra character combinations that you can do in Katakana. Take a look at “fu” and the small “e” that follows it.
エッフェルとう
Ef-fe-ru-to-u
Eiffel Tower
Notice that the romaji isn’t “Effueruto” but is “Efferutou”. The small “e” after the “fu” changes the vowel from “u” to “e”. This can be done with all of the vowels. You can add the small vowel after a character and change its ending vowel. Don’t worry about coming up with these combinations, just understand how to read them when you encounter them.
Besides this, Katakana can also use dashes to extend vowel sounds. For example, here is how you would write “hamburger”.
ハンバーガー
Ha-n-baa-gaa
Hamburger
Conclusion
Katakana is a lot of fun because when you read it, it’s like trying to guess what foreign word it is and from what language it is borrowed. As you have seen from the top two examples, not all words are written as we might expect. That is why, before writing in katakana and trying to guess how a word is written by pronounciation, look up the word. It might have a spelling that is different from what you expect. Here is a website that covers Katakana stroke order, in case you are interested. Anyways, have fun, make flashcards if that helps you, and practice!
