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!

Japanese Pronunciation - Part 3 (Hiragana)

How to pronounce hiragana - ひらがな :

The first step is to learn the alphabet. Or, at least, the sounds that exist in the Japanese language. There are absolutely no "tones" like in Chinese, Thai, etc. and there are only 2 exceptions within the alphabet which will be explained later. The characters listed below are called Hiragana. It is the main alphabet for Japanese. The Japanese language also consists of Chinese characters (Kanji), which we will get into later, and another alphabet, Katakana, which is mainly used for foreign words.

There are 5 vowels in the Japanese language. (a), pronounced "ahh", (i), pronounced like "e" in "eat", (u), pronounced like "oo" in "soon", (e), pronounced like "e" in "elk", and (o), pronounced "oh". All Hiragana characters end with one of these vowels, with the exception of (n). The only "consonant" that does not resemble that of English is the Japanese "r". It is slightly "rolled" as if it were a combination of a "d", "r", and "l".

あ (a)	い (i)	う (u)	え (e)	お (o)
か (ka)	き (ki)	く (ku)	け (ke)	こ (ko)
さ (sa)	し (shi)	す (su)	せ (se)	そ (so)
た (ta)	ち (chi)	つ (tsu)	て (te)	と (to)
な (na)	に (ni)	ぬ (nu)	ね (ne)	の (no)
は (ha)	ひ (hi)	ふ (fu)	へ (he)	ほ (ho)
ま (ma)	み (mi)	む (mu)	め (me)	も (mo)
や (ya)		ゆ (yu)		よ (yo)
ら (ra)	り (ri)	る (ru)	れ (re)	ろ (ro)
わ (wa)				を (o)
ん (n)

Combinations:

きゃ kya きゅ kyu きょ kyo ぎゃ gya ぎゅ gyu ぎょ gyo しゃ sha しゅ shu しょ sho じゃ ja じゅ ju じょ jo ちゃ cha ちゅ chu ちょ cho にゃ nya にゅ nyu にょ nyo ひゃ hya ひゅ hyu ひょ hyo びゃ bya びゅ byu びょ byo ぴゃ pya ぴゅ pyu ぴょ pyo みゃ mya みゅ myu みょ myo りゃ rya りゅ ryu りょ ryo

Exceptions:
1. は (ha) is pronounced "wa" when it immediately follows the topic of the sentence. It is usually only pronounced "ha" when it is part of a word.
2. へ (he) is pronounced "e" when it immediately follows a place or direction. Both of these are very simple to detect.

Note:
You probably noticed that there are 2 "zu" and 2 "ji". づ (zu) and ぢ (ji) are very rarely used. づ (zu) only occurs when there is a つ (tsu) in front of it like in つづく (tsuzuku - to continue) or when a Kanji (Chinese character) that starts with つ (tsu) is paired at the end with another character changing the つ (tsu) to a づ (zu). The same applies for ぢ (ji). Since they are used so rarely I wouldn't worry about them too much.