🇯🇵 Japanese for beginners (N5) · Chapter 3

Katakana: the script for foreign words

In Tokyo your name, your city and your lunch are all written in katakana — ラフル from ムンバイ eating カレー — so learning it means you can read yourself.

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The basics

Katakana is Japan's second syllable script: the same 46 sounds as hiragana, drawn with straight, angular strokes.

The problem it solves: Japanese borrows thousands of foreign words — コーヒー (coffee), パソコン (PC), カレー (curry) — and writes every foreign name and place in katakana: インド (India), デリー (Delhi), and your own name. It also shows emphasis and sound effects, the way italics do in English. Menus, train announcements, product labels and every form you fill in Japan use it.

The mental model: hiragana with sharp corners, plus a foreign-word filter. You don't learn new sounds — you learn new shapes for the sounds you know, then a few rules for squeezing English into Japanese syllables: every consonant needs a vowel (desk → デスク, de-su-ku), long vowels become a dash ー (coffee → コーヒー), and l and r both become the r-row.

Explained

Fill in a form at a Japanese company and the first box says なまえ (カタカナ). Your name, in katakana.

Rahul → ラフル · Priya → プリヤ · Arjun → アルジュン

Mumbai → ムンバイ · Chennai → チェンナイ · India → インド

Same sounds you already know. New shapes.

Two scripts, two jobs

Think of a Hindi newspaper. Native words are in Devanagari, but the headline might say 'मेट्रो' or 'मोबाइल' — English words written in Devanagari letters.

Japan solved the same problem differently: borrowed words get their own script. The moment you see angular letters, you know: this word came from abroad. カレー is curry, ヨガ is yoga, チャイ is chai, ナン is naan.

That makes katakana the friendliest script for you. Many words are English or Indian in disguise — you only have to sound them out.

Picture it: freebies, vowels, k-row

Free — they look like their hiragana: カ ka · キ ki · セ se · ニ ni · ヘ he · モ mo · ヤ ya · リ ri

• ア a — an axe; the hook is the blade
• イ i — an easel leaning on a pole
• ウ u — う wearing a hat: 'oo'
• エ e — the steel I-beam of an elevator shaft
• オ o — a man waving one arm: 'Oi!'
• ク ku — a cooing bird's beak with a lid on top
• ケ ke — a tilted letter K — ke
• コ ko — the corner of a box

Picture it: s, t and n rows

• サ sa — さ without its curl: a sari line with two pegs
• シ shi — a smiling face, eyes stacked on the left: 'she smiles' (strokes rise)
• ス su — a stick figure sprinting: 'super fast'
• ソ so — a needle sewing straight down from the top
• タ ta — ク with a bar inside: a luggage tag
• チ chi — a cheerleader with arms stretched across
• ツ tsu — a tsunami: all three strokes crash down from the top
• テ te — a telephone pole with wires
• ト to — a totem pole with one branch
• ナ na — a nail hammered in crooked: a leaning plus
• ヌ nu — chopsticks catching a noodle
• ネ ne — a necktie with its knot
• ノ no — one slash: 'No!'

Picture it: h, m, y, r, w and ン

• ハ ha — two lines spreading out: 'ha ha'
• ヒ hi — the heel of a shoe
• フ fu — the flat top of Mount Fuji
• ホ ho — a holy cross on two little legs
• マ ma — a martini glass tipped over
• ミ mi — three strokes: 'me, me, me!'
• ム mu — a cow's head: 'moo'
• メ me — an X: 'X marks me'
• ヨ yo — a backwards E: 'yo, it's backwards'
• ユ yu — a U-turn arrow
• ラ ra — a lid on a hook: a radio aerial
• ル ru — two roots going into the ground
• レ re — a leg kicked out
• ロ ro — a square road sign
• ワ wa — a tap dripping water
• ン n — ソ's twin, but sweeping up from below: the n at the end of ラーメン

Turning a foreign word into katakana

This is how Japanese ears hear English. It is also why Japanese colleagues say 'makudonarudo' for McDonald's (マクドナルド).

Extra combinations for foreign sounds

Japanese adds small ァィゥェォ to spell sounds it doesn't natively have:

ティ ti    party   → パーティー
ディ di    Deepak  → ディーパック
ファ fa    fan     → ファン
フォ fo    phone   → フォン (as in スマートフォン)
ウィ wi    weekend → ウィークエンド
チェ che   check   → チェック
シェ she   share   → シェア
ジェ je    jet     → ジェット
ヴ  vu     rarely used; most v → b

The small ャュョ work exactly as in hiragana: ジュ in アルジュン, チャ in チャイ.

Ordering at a Tokyo café

Sneha, two days into a work trip, reads the menu board.

Sneha: すみません、アイスコーヒー を ください。

(Sumimasen, aisu kōhī o kudasai — An iced coffee, please.)

Staff: サイズ は？ (Saizu wa? — Size?)

Sneha: エム、おねがいします。 (Emu, onegaishimasu — Medium, please.)

Staff: はい。お なまえ は？

Sneha: スネハ です。

Every menu word — ice, coffee, size, M — was English in katakana. The only new grammar is を ください ('please give me') and です, which you meet properly in lessons 4–5.

Words to know

In two minutes

• Katakana has the same 46 sounds as hiragana, plus the same ゛ ゜, small ッ and small ャュョ — only the shapes differ.
• It is used for foreign loanwords, foreign names and places, onomatopoeia, and emphasis.
• Several shapes are free: カ キ セ ニ ヘ モ ヤ リ look like their hiragana twins.
• The long-vowel dash ー replaces a doubled vowel: コーヒー, カレー, デリー.
• Every foreign consonant gets a vowel — usually u, but o after t and d: desk デスク, test テスト.
• L and R both map to the r-row; V usually maps to the b-row.
• Extra combinations write foreign sounds: ティ (ti), ディ (di), ファ (fa), チェ (che), シェ (she).
• Watch the look-alikes シ/ツ and ソ/ン — decide by stroke direction.

Test yourself

There are 9 questions, 3 puzzles and 5 recall cards for this lesson in the app — the recall cards come back on later days, just before you would forget.