Hana LearnHana LearnAll 104 katakana with audio, stroke counts and memory hooks — the script of menus, brands and borrowed words.
Katakana is Japanese's second alphabet — the same 46 sounds as hiragana, in sharper, more angular shapes. It's the script of borrowed words: menus (コーヒー, coffee), country names (アメリカ), brands, tech words and the katakana half of every Japanese city's signage. If you plan to visit Japan, katakana is arguably the script you'll read most as a beginner, because so much of it turns back into English once you can sound it out.
Tap any character to hear it spoken by Hana, with stroke counts, memory hooks and a real example word. Already comfortable with hiragana? You'll recognize every sound here.
The "fifty sounds" table: five vowels across, consonant rows down. This is the katakana everyone means when they say "learn your kana".
Two small strokes turn k→g, s→z, t→d and h→b. No new shapes to learn — just a new voice for characters you already know.
The little circle turns h into p. Five characters, one rule.
An i-column character plus a small ャ・ュ・ョ blends into one syllable: キ + ャ = キャ (kya). These 33 round out every sound in Japanese.
If you know hiragana, katakana is not a new language skill — it's a new font. The fastest route is mapping each katakana to the hiragana you already know.
Go row by row: ア is あ, カ is か. Your brain already owns the sounds; you're only attaching new shapes. Most learners cover the whole set in three or four days this way.
シ (shi) vs ツ (tsu), and ソ (so) vs ン (n) — the strokes differ in angle and direction. Every learner mixes these up at first; tap them above and compare their stroke hints side by side.
The long-vowel bar ー stretches the previous vowel (コーヒー = ko-o-hi-i), and small ッ doubles the next consonant, exactly like small っ in hiragana.
Katakana clicks fastest through loanwords, because the reward is instant: sound out タクシー and you've read "taxi". The example words on every character above are chosen for exactly that.
Hiragana first — it carries the grammar of every sentence you'll ever read. Katakana comes second and much faster, since the sounds are identical and only the shapes change.
You simply see it less. Hiragana appears in every sentence; katakana arrives in bursts (menus, names, tech). The fix is reading loanwords out loud — the instant reward makes the shapes stick.
The chōonpu, a long-vowel bar. It stretches the vowel before it: コーヒー (kōhī, coffee). It's the most common katakana-only symbol you'll meet.
The classic pairs are シ (shi) vs ツ (tsu) and ソ (so) vs ン (n). The difference is stroke angle and direction — compare their stroke hints on this chart.
Yes — hit the print button and the page prints as a clean chart, no site chrome.
Hana Learn drills katakana with finger tracing, loanword reading and spaced reviews — five calm minutes a day.
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