Skip to content

Learn Kana

Posted on:April 23, 2022 at 12:00 PM

The term kana (仮名) may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae.

Usually, hiragana is the default syllabary, and katakana is used in certain special cases.

A Gojūon (五十音, “fifty sounds”) is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes.

Mnemonics to remember the order of each line of kana: Ah, Kana Symbols, Take Note How Many You Read Well.

Hiragana

Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words with no kanji representation.

aiueo
k
s
t
n
h
m
y
r
w
n

Katakana

katakana is most commonly used to write words of foreign origin that do not have kanji representations, as well as foreign personal and place names.

aiueo
k
s
t
n
h
m
y
r
w
n