Katakana : a-i-u-e-o

So you want to learn Katakana? Great!

You will soon notice how similar it is with Hiragana. However there are some important differences. Although you don't have to learn Hiragana before doing this page, I
recommend it if you are not living in Japan. Hiragana is used much more in writing. But Katakana is used when writing foreign loanwords and in advertising. Therefore, Katakana is very useful for the foreigner IN Japan.

Each Lesson will tackle 5 characters. If you haven't studied Hiragana yet, I would recommend starting with it.

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Today's lesson will teach you the vowel sounds in Japanese. These are the SAME SOUNDS as the Hiragana vowels.

Basically, like Spanish, there are 5 vowel sounds. a, i, u, e, o.

ア- a - as in fAther, Ah it looks like a capital A leaning over (doing exercises) イ - i - as in fEEt It looks like a lowercase i with a hat on instead of a dot ウ - u - as in fOOd It looks like a mouth about to eat fOOd エ - e - as in eh? or hAte It looks like a capital I but it is really an Eh sound オ - o - knOw It looks like someone kicking something "OH OH!"

These are the first 5 letters in the Katakana alphabet.
Write them out 10 times a day and soon you will get it. To aid memorization, make silly associations to go with them. You can use the above mnemonics or you can make your own!