Katakana Chart With Stroke Order
Katakana is the Japanese script for words borrowed from other languages, foreign names and sound effects: 46 characters plus 25 with the dakuten (゛) and handakuten (゜) marks. This chart shows all 71 with their romaji. Tap a character to watch it written, stroke by stroke.
It has the same sounds and the same chart order as hiragana, with straighter, sharper shapes: コーヒー (kōhī, coffee), テレビ (terebi, TV), アメリカ (Amerika).
The katakana chart
Rows go by consonant, columns by vowel. Romaji follow the Hepburn system.
The 46 basic characters 46
| a | i | u | e | o | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vowels | |||||
| k-row | |||||
| s-row | |||||
| t-row | |||||
| n-row | |||||
| h-row | |||||
| m-row | |||||
| y-row | |||||
| r-row | |||||
| w-row | |||||
| n-row |
With dakuten and handakuten 25
| a | i | u | e | o | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| g-row | |||||
| z-row | |||||
| d-row | |||||
| b-row | |||||
| p-row |
Combined sounds 33
An i-column character plus a small ャ, ュ or ョ makes one syllable: キャ is kya.
| ya | yu | yo |
|---|---|---|
| キャ kya | キュ kyu | キョ kyo |
| シャ sha | シュ shu | ショ sho |
| チャ cha | チュ chu | チョ cho |
| ニャ nya | ニュ nyu | ニョ nyo |
| ヒャ hya | ヒュ hyu | ヒョ hyo |
| ミャ mya | ミュ myu | ミョ myo |
| リャ rya | リュ ryu | リョ ryo |
| ギャ gya | ギュ gyu | ギョ gyo |
| ジャ ja | ジュ ju | ジョ jo |
| ビャ bya | ビュ byu | ビョ byo |
| ピャ pya | ピュ pyu | ピョ pyo |
How to learn katakana
- Learn hiragana first. Katakana follows the same rows and sounds, so each hiragana character you know gives you its katakana twin: か and カ, せ and セ.
- Separate the classic look-alikes. シ shi and ツ tsu, ソ so and ン n: in シ and ン the long stroke rises from the bottom left; in ツ and ソ it falls from the top right. Also ク, ケ and タ; ウ and ワ; ユ and コ.
- Long vowels use a bar. ー stretches the vowel before it: ケーキ kēki (cake), ノート nōto (notebook). In vertical text the bar runs vertically.
- Small characters work as in hiragana. A small ッ doubles the next consonant (ベッド beddo, bed), and ャ, ュ, ョ make combined sounds. Katakana adds a few more for foreign sounds, such as ファ fa and ティ ti.
- Read real words early. Menus, shop signs and product names are full of katakana loanwords you already know in English, which makes it the quickest script to practise reading.
Practice them in a tile puzzle
GlyphLink is a free tile-matching puzzle for iPhone and iPad, and its hiragana and katakana sets are free. Spotting the same shapes again and again trains your eye for them, so reading gets quicker.
Try a small board right here: tap two identical tiles and link them with a line that turns twice or less.
Board cleared
A small, gentle demo with no clock. In the app, boards have 52, 80 or 114 tiles and about four minutes on the clock.
Opens the GlyphLink App Clip: a real board of kana in seconds, right here on your iPhone or iPad.
Free to play, with ads.
No account needed.
Sources and licence
- Stroke order: KanjiVG by Ulrich Apel and contributors, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Romaji: Hepburn romanization. The 71-character set is GlyphLink's.
You may reuse the chart on this page under CC BY-SA 4.0, with credit to GlyphLink; the KanjiVG strokes keep their CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. The stroke file this page plays is katakana-chart.json.