Katakana (カタカナ) is one of the three main writing systems used in Japanese, alongside Hiragana (ひらがな) and Kanji (漢字).
It consists of 46 basic characters and each character represents a sound, just like the characters in Hiragana.
Katakana is basically used to write foreign words or onomatopoeia, while Hiragana is used for Native Japanese words.
Click each Katakana to see stroke order animation.
KATAKANA | READING | STROKE COUNT |
ア | a | 2 |
イ | i | 2 |
ウ | u | 3 |
エ | e | 3 |
オ | o | 3 |
カ | ka | 2 |
キ | ki | 3 |
ク | ku | 2 |
ケ | ke | 3 |
コ | ko | 2 |
サ | sa | 3 |
シ | shi | 3 |
ス | su | 2 |
セ | se | 2 |
ソ | so | 2 |
タ | ta | 3 |
チ | chi | 3 |
ツ | tsu | 3 |
テ | te | 3 |
ト | to | 2 |
ナ | na | 2 |
ニ | ni | 2 |
ヌ | nu | 2 |
ネ | ne | 4 |
ノ | no | 1 |
ハ | ha | 2 |
ヒ | hi | 2 |
フ | fu | 1 |
ヘ | he | 1 |
ホ | ho | 4 |
マ | ma | 2 |
ミ | mi | 3 |
ム | mu | 2 |
メ | me | 2 |
モ | mo | 3 |
ヤ | ya | 2 |
ユ | yu | 2 |
ヨ | yo | 3 |
ラ | ra | 2 |
リ | ri | 2 |
ル | ru | 2 |
レ | re | 1 |
ロ | ro | 3 |
ワ | wa | 2 |
ヰ | wi | 4 |
ヱ | we | 3 |
ヲ | wo | 3 |
ン | n | 2 |
* The list consists of 48 characters including ヰ and ヱ which are now rarely used.