Part 1: ア イ ウ エ オ and Long Vowels
Read this page briefly and spend most of your time on the drill exercise for quick memorization.
ア, イ, ウ, エ and オ are five vowels of the Japanese language and belong to ア-row in the 五十音図 [gojūon-zu].
Reading
Pronunciation of Katakana letters are exactly the same as the corresponding Hiragana letters.
Long Vowels
In addition to the five vowels, there are five long vowels ā, ii, ū, ē and ō.
All long vowels are indicated by adding [ー] (horizontal bar).
Writing
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The second stroke goes down vertically, then curves towards the left. |
|---|---|
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Mind the tilt angle of the line 1. Two lines are not crossed, just touching. |
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The line 1 and 3 are not crossed, just touching. The end of the third stroke is slightly curved. |
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The line 1 and 3 are parallel, and the line 3 is longer. |
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Start the third stroke at the right place. |
Writing Practice
Handwriting practice improves your character recognition ability.
Printable practice sheets (PDF) are available at Katakana Writing Practice page.
Typing
| Katakana | ア | イ | ウ | エ | オ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keystrokes | a | i | u | e | o |
| Katakana | アー | イー | ウー | エー | オー |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keystrokes | a- | i- | u- | e- | o- |
Keystrokes to input Katakana are the same as Hiragana.
Keystroke for the long vowel mark [ー] is [-] (hyphen).
Drill Exercise
Each drill trains specific abilities - reading, character recognition and text input.
Different voices (male, female, robot, etc.) are used to improve flexible listening ability.
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