Katakana Chart: The Complete Guide
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Want a katakana chart you can actually learn from, not just stare at?
In this article I'll give you the full katakana chart, every character with its romaji, laid out so it makes sense rather than just sitting there as a wall of symbols. We'll cover the 46 base characters, the voiced ones (the dakuten and handakuten rows), the little combination sounds, the long-vowel mark that's unique to katakana, and the extra characters Japanese invented to handle foreign sounds. By the end you'll know not just what each character is, but when and why katakana gets used.
A quick reassurance before we get going. Katakana looks intimidating because it's a second whole alphabet on top of hiragana. But it's really the same 46 sounds you already know (or are learning) from hiragana, just dressed in sharper, more angular clothing. So if you've met hiragana, you've already done the hard conceptual work. Katakana is a fresh set of shapes for sounds you've seen before, and most learners get it down in a few days.
I learned my kana the same way I tackle everything in a new language: I stopped treating it as something to admire and started using it straight away, spotting katakana words on signs, menus and packaging all over Japan. That's where it clicked. Half the fun of katakana is that loads of the words are borrowed from English, so once you can read it, you'll be sounding out words you already know.
What Is Katakana (and How It Differs from Hiragana)
Japanese is written with three scripts working together: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are the two phonetic alphabets, together called kana. They cover exactly the same set of sounds. The difference is the job each one does.
Hiragana handles native Japanese words and grammar. Katakana is the script for everything that comes from outside, plus a few special jobs. Most of the time, if you see those sharp, angular characters, you're looking at:
- Loanwords borrowed from other languages, especially English. コーヒー (kōhī) is “coffee”, テレビ (terebi) is “television”, and パン (pan, from various Latin languages) is “bread”.
- Foreign names, both people and places. Your own name will almost certainly be written in katakana when you're in Japan.
- Onomatopoeia, the sound-effect words Japanese loves. ワンワン (wanwan) is a dog's bark, ドキドキ (dokidoki) is a thumping heart.
- Emphasis, a bit like italics in English. A word that would normally be hiragana or kanji gets written in katakana to make it pop.
- Scientific and technical terms, including the names of plants, animals and chemicals.
That “foreign and borrowed” angle is the key to katakana. Hiragana is for the inside, katakana is for the outside. Hold onto that and the whole script makes sense.
If you'd like the bird's-eye view of how all three scripts fit together, our guide to the Japanese alphabet walks through hiragana, katakana and kanji side by side.
The Full Katakana Chart: 46 Base Characters
Here's the heart of it: the gojūon (“fifty sounds”), the base katakana chart. Read it like a grid. The five vowels run across the top (a, i, u, e, o), and each row adds a consonant in front of them. So the K row gives you ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, and so on down the chart.
| a | i | u | e | o | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – | ア (a) | イ (i) | ウ (u) | エ (e) | オ (o) |
| k | カ (ka) | キ (ki) | ク (ku) | ケ (ke) | コ (ko) |
| s | サ (sa) | シ (shi) | ス (su) | セ (se) | ソ (so) |
| t | タ (ta) | チ (chi) | ツ (tsu) | テ (te) | ト (to) |
| n | ナ (na) | ニ (ni) | ヌ (nu) | ネ (ne) | ノ (no) |
| h | ハ (ha) | ヒ (hi) | フ (fu) | ヘ (he) | ホ (ho) |
| m | マ (ma) | ミ (mi) | ム (mu) | メ (me) | モ (mo) |
| y | ヤ (ya) | ユ (yu) | ヨ (yo) | ||
| r | ラ (ra) | リ (ri) | ル (ru) | レ (re) | ロ (ro) |
| w | ワ (wa) | ヲ (wo) | |||
| n | ン (n) |
A few notes so nothing trips you up:
- Three sounds break the tidy pattern, exactly as they do in hiragana: シ is shi (not “si”), チ is chi (not “ti”), and ツ is tsu (not “tu”). Worth flagging now so they don't surprise you later.
- The y row and w row have gaps. There's simply no yi, ye, wi, wu or we in modern standard Japanese, so those slots sit empty.
- ヲ (wo) is vanishingly rare in katakana. You'll meet its hiragana cousin を all the time as a grammar particle, but the katakana version barely turns up.
- ン (n) is the one lone consonant, the only katakana that isn't a full syllable. It's the n sound at the end of words like パン (pan).
That's the full base set. Forty-six characters, and every other katakana on this page is built from these.
Dakuten and Handakuten: The Voiced Sounds
Here's where katakana rewards you for the work you've already done. You don't learn a fresh batch of characters for the voiced sounds. You take characters you already know and add a small mark.
Two little strokes in the top-right corner (called dakuten, or informally tenten, “dot dot”) switch a sound to its voiced version. So カ (ka) becomes ガ (ga), and サ (sa) becomes ザ (za). A small circle (called handakuten, or maru, “circle”) only ever appears on the H row, turning it into P sounds: ハ (ha) becomes パ (pa).
| a | i | u | e | o | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| g | ガ (ga) | ギ (gi) | グ (gu) | ゲ (ge) | ゴ (go) |
| z | ザ (za) | ジ (ji) | ズ (zu) | ゼ (ze) | ゾ (zo) |
| d | ダ (da) | ヂ (ji) | ヅ (zu) | デ (de) | ド (do) |
| b | バ (ba) | ビ (bi) | ブ (bu) | ベ (be) | ボ (bo) |
| p | パ (pa) | ピ (pi) | プ (pu) | ペ (pe) | ポ (po) |
A couple of things to know:
- The d row has a quirk: ヂ is pronounced ji and ヅ is zu, exactly the same as ジ and ズ from the z row. In practice you'll almost always see the z-row versions; the d-row pair is rare. Don't let it worry you.
- Only the H row takes the handakuten circle to make the P sounds. No other row gets it.
So the voiced sounds are really just five rows of “characters you know, plus a mark”. That's the whole trick.
Yōon: The Combination Sounds
The last piece of the standard chart is yōon, the contracted sounds. These are made by taking a character from the i column (キ, シ, チ and so on) and tacking a small ヤ, ユ or ヨ onto it. The small ya/yu/yo glides into the first sound to make a single syllable.
| + small ya | + small yu | + small yo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| k | キャ (kya) | キュ (kyu) | キョ (kyo) |
| sh | シャ (sha) | シュ (shu) | ショ (sho) |
| ch | チャ (cha) | チュ (chu) | チョ (cho) |
| n | ニャ (nya) | ニュ (nyu) | ニョ (nyo) |
| h | ヒャ (hya) | ヒュ (hyu) | ヒョ (hyo) |
| m | ミャ (mya) | ミュ (myu) | ミョ (myo) |
| r | リャ (rya) | リュ (ryu) | リョ (ryo) |
| g | ギャ (gya) | ギュ (gyu) | ギョ (gyo) |
| j | ジャ (ja) | ジュ (ju) | ジョ (jo) |
| b | ビャ (bya) | ビュ (byu) | ビョ (byo) |
| p | ピャ (pya) | ピュ (pyu) | ピョ (pyo) |
The thing to watch is size. A full-sized ヤ is its own syllable, but a small ャ tucked beside another character forms one blended sound. キヤ would be ki-ya (two beats); キャ is kya (one beat). The shrunken character is the tell.
The Long-Vowel Mark ー (Chōonpu)
Here's a feature that belongs almost entirely to katakana, and it's a lovely simple one.
When a vowel sound is held longer, katakana marks it with a single straight line: ー. It's called the chōonpu, and it just means “stretch the vowel before me”. Write it horizontally in horizontal text, vertically in vertical text.
This is genuinely different from hiragana. Hiragana shows long vowels by adding an extra vowel character (so a long “o” is written おう, for example). Katakana skips all that and just draws the line:
- コーヒー = kōhī (“coffee”), with the line stretching both the “ko” and the “hi”.
- ラーメン = rāmen (“ramen”), holding the “ra”.
- ケーキ = kēki (“cake”).
- スーパー = sūpā (“supermarket”, from “super”).
Once you spot the ー, you know the vowel in front of it is a long one. It's one of the easiest wins in the whole script, and it shows up constantly because so many loanwords have long vowels.
Extended Katakana for Foreign Sounds
Because katakana's main job is importing foreign words, Japanese needed a way to write sounds that don't exist in native Japanese, things like “fa”, “ti” and “va”. The solution is clever: take an existing character and pair it with a small vowel (ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ, ォ) to nudge it into a new sound.
You don't need to memorise these the way you do the base chart, but it helps to recognise them, because they turn up in names and modern loanwords all the time.
| Kana | Romaji | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ファ フィ フェ フォ | fa, fi, fe, fo | ファイル (fairu, “file”) |
| ティ ディ | ti, di | パーティー (pātī, “party”) |
| トゥ ドゥ | tu, du | タトゥー (tatū, “tattoo”) |
| ウィ ウェ ウォ | wi, we, wo | ウィスキー (wisukī, “whisky”) |
| ヴァ ヴィ ヴ ヴェ ヴォ | va, vi, vu, ve, vo | ヴァイオリン (vaiorin, “violin”) |
| シェ ジェ チェ | she, je, che | シェフ (shefu, “chef”) |
| ツァ ツェ ツォ | tsa, tse, tso | モーツァルト (mōtsaruto, “Mozart”) |
A handy detail: the ヴ (vu) series is the formal way to write a “v” sound, but in everyday Japanese the “v” often just gets softened to a “b”. So “violin” might appear as either ヴァイオリン or バイオリン, and “Venus” as either ヴィーナス or ビーナス. Both are correct, and you'll see both in the wild.
The Most Confusing Look-Alike Pairs
Every katakana learner hits the same handful of characters that look almost identical. The good news: each pair has a reliable tell once someone points it out. Here are the ones that catch people, and how to keep them straight.
シ (shi) vs ツ (tsu). The classic trap. Look at the two short strokes and the direction of the long one. On シ (shi) the short strokes are stacked more horizontally and the long stroke sweeps up from the bottom. On ツ (tsu) the short strokes sit more vertically at the top and the long stroke comes down. A memory hook: shi smiles up, tsu drips down.
ン (n) vs ソ (so). Same idea, different angle. ン (n) has its short stroke low, with the main stroke sweeping up from the bottom-left. ソ (so) has its short stroke high, with the main stroke coming down from the top. The trick is the same as the シ/ツ pair: think about whether the line goes up or comes down.
ク (ku), ワ (wa) and タ (ta). A trio built from similar bones. ク (ku) is the simplest, two strokes. ワ (wa) is rounder and more open on the left. タ (ta) is ク with an extra little stroke through it. Read them as “ku, the open one is wa, and the one with the extra dash is ta”.
ナ (na) vs メ (me). Both are a cross-ish shape. ナ (na) is a clean plus sign with a vertical stroke through a horizontal one. メ (me) is two strokes crossing like an X. Plus sign is na, X is me.
The fix for all of these is the same: write them out by hand. Stroke order and direction are exactly what separate these pairs, and your hand learns the difference faster than your eye does.
How to Learn Katakana (the Fast Way)
Katakana is a small, finite set, which makes it one of the most satisfying early wins in Japanese. Here's how I'd go after it:
- Learn it in rows, one consonant set at a time. Five characters a day (the vowels, then the K row, then the S row) and you've got the base chart inside a fortnight. Don't try to swallow all 46 at once.
- Write each character by hand. This is non-negotiable for the look-alike pairs. Tracing the strokes builds a muscle memory that reading alone never will.
- Lean on the loanwords. Katakana's superpower for an English speaker is that so many words are borrowed from English. Reading コーヒー and realising it says “coffee” is a genuine little thrill, and it turns practice into a game.
- Read katakana in the wild. Menus, signs, packaging, brand names. Japan is covered in katakana, and decoding real words beats any flashcard drill.
- Use spaced repetition. A flashcard app like Anki keeps the characters fresh while they bed in. Ten minutes a day is plenty.
Once katakana feels comfortable, you've got real momentum. Build on it with our guide to 101 core Japanese words, get your head around Japanese numbers, and learn how to tell the time in Japanese. For the full lay of the land, the Japanese language masterclass ties it all together.
Reading the script is only ever step one, though. The real goal is using Japanese with actual people, and that's exactly what we build inside the Fluent in 3 Months Bootcamp: a community and a method for getting you speaking your new language with real humans, fast, with me coaching you through it.
For now, you've got the complete katakana chart and everything you need to start reading it. Go and find some katakana out in the world, you'll be amazed how much of it you can already sound out.
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