Katakana: the chart, stroke by stroke

The same forty-six syllables as hiragana, in sharper shapes, for the words Japanese borrowed.

Katakana is the second Japanese syllabary. It has exactly the sounds of hiragana – the same rows, the same dakuten and handakuten – but angular shapes, and it is used for loanwords (コーヒー, coffee), foreign names, onomatopoeia and emphasis. A menu, a shop sign or a tech article is full of it, which is why learners who skip it stay half-literate.

Because the sounds are already known, katakana is a matter of shapes and stroke order alone. Several pairs look alike – シ and ツ, ソ and ン – and the stroke order and direction are what tell them apart on paper. Tap a character to watch it written, then trace it.

A long vowel is written with a bar (ー), and small ャ ュ ョ combine with i-row characters for sounds like キャ (kya). The course introduces katakana right after hiragana at A0 and keeps using it in real words from A1.

The chart

Tap a character to watch it being written and to trace it yourself.

Basic characters

k
s
t
n
h
m
y
r
w
n

Voiced (dakuten)

g
z
d
b

Semi-voiced (handakuten)

p
  • Learn it against hiragana: あ and ア side by side, row by row, so the sound is never in question.
  • Practise on the words you already know in English – コーヒー, タクシー, ホテル – and read them aloud.
  • Drill the look-alikes on purpose: シ ツ ソ ン, ク ケ, ワ ウ. Five minutes a day for a week settles them.

The lessons that teach it

The A0 level of the course, free: the letters, their sounds and the first words, with the same stroke animations and tracing exercises.

Hiragana: the First Half

Writing and reading the first twenty-five hiragana.

  1. あいうえお: the five vowels
  2. The ka row and the sa row
  3. The ta row and the na row
  4. Checkpoint: the first twenty-five signs
  5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Hiragana: the Second Half

The remaining hiragana, the first words, and what katakana is for.

  1. The ha row and the ma row
  2. The last rows, and the sign that ends a syllable
  3. Your first Japanese words
  4. Checkpoint: all of hiragana
  5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The whole course: Learn Japanese together

Questions

Is katakana harder than hiragana?
No – it is faster, because the sounds are already learned. The only real difficulty is a handful of look-alike pairs, which stroke order resolves.
Can I skip katakana and use hiragana for everything?
You can write that way, but you cannot read: menus, brands, names and technical words are printed in katakana, and a text with any foreign word in it needs it.
How is a long vowel written in katakana?
With the bar ー after the character: コーヒー, ケーキ. In hiragana a long vowel is written with an extra vowel character instead.