There are THREE types of letters in Japanese language; kanji, katakana, and hiragana. In this article, let’s learn about the letters of katakana and its pronunciation!
The Letters of Katakana
How many katakana does Japanese language have? Yes, the answer is 50. Here are the 50 katakana letters with pronunciation!
ア ( a ) イ ( i ) ウ ( u ) エ ( e ) オ (o )
カ ( ka ) キ ( ki ) ク ( ku ) ケ ( ke ) コ ( ko )
サ ( sa ) シ ( shi ) ス ( su ) セ ( se ) ソ ( so )
タ ( ta ) チ ( chi ) ツ ( tsu ) テ ( te ) ト ( to )
ナ ( na ) ニ ( ni ) ヌ ( nu ) ネ ( ne ) ノ ( no )
ハ ( ha ) ヒ ( hi ) フ ( fu ) ヘ ( he ) ホ ( ho )
マ ( ma ) ミ ( mi ) ム ( mu ) メ ( me ) モ ( mo )
ヤ ( ya ) ユ ( yu ) ヨ ( yo )
ワ ( wa ) ヲ ( wo ) ン ( nn )
アイウエオ are the Japanese vowels. If you can pronounce these five letters correctly, the others are really easy to learn because all you need to do is just put a syllable before the vowel.
How to Pronounce アイウエオ？
ア is a short and strong sound. Similar pronunciations are like these: cut, soccer, practice.
イ is also short sound, like: ear, employee, volunteer.
ウ is pronounced like: cute, food, root.
エ is the sound similar to; enter, send, end.
オ is for example; oh, door, potato.
In the next article, I’ll introduce the history of katakana and when and how to use katakana so please check it out!
