Japanese Katakana Alphabet: Table of Characters with Transcription and Stroke Order

Preface: The Japanese Writing System

The modern writing system in Japan is arguably one of the most complex among all the world's languages. It consists of around 2,000 kanji (Chinese characters) and two syllabaries, Katakana and Hiragana.

At the initial stage of learning Japanese, it is advisable to focus on the syllabaries. First, their characters are simpler to write than kanji. Second, any Japanese word can be written using these syllabaries.

It is also necessary to become familiar with the transcription systems for Japanese sounds. For English speakers, the most common is the Hepburn romanization (romaji), which uses the Latin alphabet and is used globally.

There is another highly interesting issue. Why are Japanese words that have entered the English language not always pronounced in accordance with their original sounds? The problem is not insignificant. In our time, due to many of Japan’s achievements, a flow of “Japanisms” has actively begun to penetrate the English language—names of goods and services, food products, and sports terminology. It is no wonder that learners have questions about the correct spelling and pronunciation of Japanese words. For instance, why we sometimes place the wrong stress on “Toshiba”, or whether it’s pronounced “Sushi” or “Susi”.

You will find comments on this in the corresponding chapter.

The Japanese Kana Syllabary and its Transcription

The Japanese alphabet is called Kana. It is a syllabary. The variations of its written form are the Katakana and Hiragana character systems, as well as the transcription using Latin letters known as romaji. Kana is written in the form of a table consisting of 11 rows, currently containing 46 basic characters (some characters have fallen out of use). In addition, there are 61 syllables denoted by the basic characters with various types of marks and indices. These are syllables that are voiced counterparts of the basic syllables, and the so-called syllables with soft consonants (yoon).

Please note that learning new “characters” is a highly individual process. For some, the tables in this lesson will be enough; others might need them to be “chewed over” and presented with each “character” in a separate lesson + sound + pictures + “cake with tea” and other whims... Therefore, a message for the second group of people: nothing better has been found for now. Try to find other additional lessons that would help you learn the alphabet. If you find any, let us know. Most people, however, learn by the method of “writing them out repeatedly”, just as we learned the alphabet in school. You can also find many trainers and mobile apps to practice the syllabaries. Lessons 3-6 are designed to reinforce the syllabaries, so you can start with them, consulting the first two lessons. Any useful advice on improving these lessons is welcome.

You can start learning Japanese from Lesson 4, consulting the first two lessons as needed.

Hover your mouse over a character/letter to see a tooltip. And don’t miss the animated pictures below.

Katakana Table with Romaji Transcription

The provided romaji transcription is the Hepburn system, which is the standard accepted transcription. However, it does not give an exact sound representation. In further lessons, read the descriptions of the sounds carefully and listen more; only then will everything become clear.

If you see squares instead of the alphabet below, install the Adobe Kaiti Std R or SimSun font. The archive needs to be unpacked into “Control Panel - Fonts”. Refresh the page. You may need to restart your computer.

Katakana Alphabet: All 46 Characters with Stroke Order

Below are examples of the correct stroke order for the Katakana characters.

Note that the characters consist of strokes, each written in one continuous motion (regardless of its complexity) in a specific direction. (Click on the image to view the animation - the correct drawing of the strokes.)

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
ラ	RA	リ	RI	ル	RU	レ	RE	ロ	RO
ワ	WA	ヰ	WI			ヱ	WE	ヲ	WO
		ヰ*				ヱ*
				ン	N

The * symbol marks characters that have fallen out of use.

Below is an optional part of the lesson (as this will be covered later).

Voiced Syllables: Dakuten (Nigori) and Handakuten (Hannigori)

A number of syllables have a voiced counterpart. To indicate such syllables, the characters discussed above are equipped with dakuten (nigori) or handakuten (hannigori) marks. The first represents two short diagonal strokes, and the second is a small circle. Both marks are placed in the upper right corner.

The following syllables have voiced counterparts:

Syllables of the カ, サ, タ, and ハ columns and their voiced counterparts written in Katakana

Syllables of the KA, SA, TA, and HA columns and their voiced counterparts in Romaji transcription

Syllables with Soft Consonants (Yoon)

There is also a series of so-called syllables with soft consonants (yoon). To represent them, the characters for syllables ending in the vowel “I” are used, equipped with a slightly smaller subscript character from the following: YA, YU, YO. These syllables also have voiced counterparts.

Syllables with soft consonants written in Katakana

Syllables with soft consonants in Romaji transcription

Watch the video song (to help with memorization):

Additional links to the song: ↗ 🔵 VK, ↗ ⚫ RuTube

To move to the next lesson, click Next on the bottom right or select a lesson in the top right menu.