Katakana

Katakana – For Words ‘Foreign’ to Japanese

‘Katakana’ is used to help distinguish ‘foreign’ words – that would otherwise be unknown in the Japanese or Chinese languages. For example – the word ‘hamburger’ would have no meaning in the original Japanese language as written in Hiragana. It is a foreign word, so because of this – it’s spelled in ‘Katakana’ instead. The spelling for hamburger in Katakana would be ハンバーガー. Similarly, many English names have no meaning in Hiragana or Kanji – so they are spelled in Katakana as well. スティーブ would refer to Steve in English. Additionally, Katakana would be used to identify names from other languages as well, such as Korean or Russian names.

Main Sounds

ア ‘a’	カ ‘ka’	サ ‘sa’	タ ‘ta’	ナ ‘na’	ハ ‘ha’	マ ‘ma’	ヤ ‘ya’	ラ ‘ra’ ‘la’	ワ ‘wa’
イ ‘i’	キ ‘ki’	シ ‘shi’	チ ‘chi’	ニ ‘ni’	ヒ ‘hi’	ミ ‘mi’		リ ‘ri’ ‘li’	ヰ* ‘wi’
ウ ‘u’	ク ‘ku’	ス ‘su’	ツ ‘tsu’	ヌ ‘nu’	フ ‘hu’ ‘fu’	ム ‘mu’	ユ ‘yu’	ル ‘ru’ ‘lu’
エ ‘e’	ケ ‘ke’	セ ‘se’	テ ‘te’	ネ ‘ne’	ヘ ‘he’	メ ‘me’		レ ‘re’ ‘le’	ヱ* ‘we’
オ ‘o’	コ ‘ko’	ソ ‘so’	ト ‘to’	ノ ‘no’	ホ ‘ho’	モ ‘mo’	ヨ ‘yo’	ロ ‘ro’ ‘lo’	ヲ ‘wo’

* Gray font denotes that the letter was deprecated by the Japanese Ministry of Education and is no longer in use.

The ‘ン’, ‘ー’ and ‘ッ’ Sounds

ン ‘n’ – ‘hard consonant, no vowel sound’

ー ‘extends the previous sound’

ッ ‘doubles the following consonant sound’

Unlike the other 45 main letters, the ‘ン’ letter has no vowel following it. It is simply a hard consonant that is pronounced ‘n’ that you’ll occassionally see from time to time in spellings for words; for example: リンク refers to ‘link’, like an Internet Link. We would read this as ‘li’-'n’-'ku’.

The ‘ー’ symbol is used to elongate the previous sound of the letter before it. So for example, let’s look at the word ‘タクシー’ which means ‘taxi’. The pronunication for this word is ‘ta’-'ku’-'shi-’i’. The reason for this is that the ‘ー’　letter elongates the ‘シ’ sound, with the last part of the vowel ending in ‘イ’. Thus the ‘ー’ also becomes an ‘イ’ sound. Another example: ‘ホームページ’; in this case the ‘ー’ mark would elongate the vowel for the letter ‘ホ’, so it would add one more ‘オ’ to read ‘ho’-'o’-'mu’. ページ would read ‘pe’-'e’-'ji’.

The ‘ッ’ symbol usually precedes a consonant, and doubles the sound it would normally make. As an example, let’s look at the word: ‘スナック’, which means ‘snack’ in English. The way we would pronounce this word would be ‘su’-'na’-'kku’. Notice how the ‘k’ consonant for ‘ク’ was doubled towards the end of the word. This was because of the small ‘ッ’ symbol which preceded the ‘ク’ letter, hence doubling the ‘k’ sound in ‘ク’.

Harder & Softer Sounds

Whenever you see a “ symbol symbol next to a Kana letter – the letter usually gets a harder sound. In the above table, we learned there are 45 basic letters each with their own sound. In the next table (below), you will see that by combining a letter such as ‘カ’ with the symbol ” makes a newharder sound called ‘ガ’ or ‘ga’.

With the ^o symbol, the Kana letter that precedes it usually gets a ‘softer’sound. So ハ + ^o = パ or ‘pa’.

ガ ‘ga’	ギ ‘gi’	グ ‘gu’	ゲ ‘ge’	ゴ ‘go’
ザ ‘za’	ジ ‘ji’ or ‘zi’	ズ ‘zu’	ゼ ‘ze’	ゾ ‘zo’
ダ ‘da’	ヂ ‘di’	ヅ ‘du’	デ ‘de’	ド ‘do’
バ ‘ba’	ビ ‘bi’	ブ ‘bu’	ベ ‘be’	ボ ‘bo’
パ ‘pa’	ピ ‘pi’	プ ‘pu’	ペ ‘pe’	ポ ‘po’

Combined Sounds

Additionally, ‘イ’ sound letters can be combined ‘ヤ’, ‘ユ’ or ‘ヨ’ together to form additional new letters. When the letters are combined, the second letter (and letters thereafter) are reduced in size to indicate to the reader that the letter is a whole new sound together (not two or three different sounds all read together).

For example ‘ニ’ + little ‘ョ’ = ‘ニョ’. The new sound would be ‘nyo’, (not ‘niyo’ which would look like this ‘ニヨ’ — note the ‘ヨ’ is not reduced in size).

In addition to little ‘ョ’, sometimes you’ll also see an ‘ア’ or a ‘ウ’ following thereafter. ‘ア’ or ‘ウ’ makes the entire sound of the letter block longer. ‘ジ’ + ‘ャ’ + ‘ア’ = ‘ジャア’ which sounds like ‘jyaa’ (as opposed to just ‘jya’). ‘ミ’ + ‘ョ’ + ‘ウ’ = ‘ミョウ’, which would sound like ‘myoo’ (as opposed to just ‘myo’). (Remember also that just ‘ミヨウ’ in large letters would have a different reading than ‘ミョウ’ with a small ‘ョ’ in the middle – ‘miyoo’ vs ‘myoo’).

Additional Sounds Using Combined Letters

ヴァ ‘va’	ヴィ ‘vi’	ヴ ‘vu’	ヴェ ‘ve’	ヴォ ‘vo’
		ティ ‘ti’
		ディ ‘di’

You Practice

Try reading the following words:

ハンバーガー ‘Hamburger’	ドイツ ‘Germany’	ポテトフライ ‘French Fries’
ピラフ ‘Pilaf’	ラーメン ‘Ramen’	コカコーラ ‘Coca-Cola’
サンドイッチ ‘Sandwich’	テリヤキ ‘Teriyaki’	オムライス ‘Omelet Rice’
キャンディ ‘Candy’	ギュウニュウ ‘Milk’	ニュース ‘News’

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