Katakana(カタカナ)
If you took the previous lesson and learned how to read and write Hiragana(ひらがな), then this lesson will be easier for you. Below is the chart with the basic characters. As you can see, Katakana(カタカナ) uses the same syllables. The only difference, is that they are written differently.
Katakana(カタカナ) is mainly used to write out foreign words. The easy thing about Katakana(カタカナ) is that it uses the same rules Hiragana(ひらがな) does. This will make it fairly easy to learn it.
As you can see, the Katakana(カタカナ) characters resemble somehow the Hiragana(ひらがな) ones. For instance, the symbols for “ka”, ”ki”,”ku", “he”, “mo” and “ya” are very similar to its siblings from the Hiragana(ひらがな) chart.
You have to have special care with the characters for “shi” and “tsu”. They are very similar and easy to mix up.
※ In order to remember them correctly remeber this:
“shi”(シ) = the lines are horizontal
“tsu”(ツ) = the lines are vertical
As for rules, Katakana(カタカナ) uses the same rules as Hiragana(ひらがな). Stroke order and character size is key to make your writing more fluid. Remember that all your characters have to fit into an imaginary square.
I recommend the same method as for Hiragana(ひらがな) to memorize these characters. Use a college block and write a whole line of “ka’s” then you move on to “ki", "ku", "ke", "ko", ect.
This is the fastest way of storing it permanently in your brain.
Example:
カカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカカ
You use dakuten(濁点) and handakuten(半濁点) for Katakana(カタカナ) as well. They work the same way and are placed similarly.
- When you add dakuten(濁点) to the ka-series, these syllables become “ga”, “gi”, “gu”, “ge”, “go”.
- When you add dakuten(濁点) to the sa-series, these syllables become “za”, “ji”, “zu”, “ze”, “zo”.
- When you add dakuten(濁点) to the ta-series, these syllables become “da”, “ji”, “dzu”, “de”, “do”.
- When you add dakuten(濁点) to the ha-series, these syllables become “ba”, “bi”, “bu”, “be”, “bo”.
- When you add handakuten(半濁点). When you add handakuten(半濁点) to the ha-series, these syllables become “pa”, “pi”, “pu”, “pe”, “po”.
Special Rules
Now that we know all the Katakana(カタカナ) syllables, we will introduce some special rules again.
※ (this time simpler)
Double consonant
In order to make a vowel sound longer, you simply have to add a long minus (ー) either between or after a character.
The vowel that comes before the long minus (ー) is extended. Just to let you know what these words mean I provided the translation of these Katakana(カタカナ) words.
Yes, that is how Japanese people spell and pronounce English and Wester words in general.
Combined syllable
Just as with Hiragana(ひらがな), you can combine the characters that end in “i” with a small “ya”, “yu”, “yo” to form a combined syllable.
You can attach the small characters of ya, yu, yo to the characters of ki, gi, shi, ji, chi, ni, hi, bi, pi, mi and ri.
※ There exist a few more special characters but I won't teach them to you for three reasons:
- Katakana is not widely used in texts and going to much into katakana will make it unnecessarily harder for you.
- You can infer the remaining special characters as they are made of the basic characters you already know.
- With what you know now about katakana, you can read 95% of the words written in katakana without problems.
Once you finish this, you are done with Katakana(カタカナ). You have all the rules you need to become a Katakana(カタカナ) reading and writing machine. If you want to improve your Katakana(カタカナ) skill, you can play a game called kana invader.
You will see Katakana(カタカナ) in literature, tv shows, advertising, on restaurant cards and on many many more places. So it will be useful.
The next lesson will be a short lesson about Kanji(漢字) and I will introduce, for the first time, some vocabulary(ごい) so you can start understanding some Japanese.