Learn Katakana-KA KI KU KE KO

In the last lesson, we went over アイウエオ — the core vowel sounds. The Japanese language consists of simply adding consonants to these core sounds.

Let’s start with K first.

KA KI KU KE KO-カキクケコ

• カ → ka (like “kah”)
• キ → ki (like “key”)
• ク → ku (like “coo”)
• ケ → ke (like “kay”)
• コ → ko (like “koh”)

Lucky カ

If you’ve studied hiragana already then you’ll notice the katakana カ is super similar to the か in hiragana – lucky! It looks like a sharper, more squared version.

Look Out For ク-ケ

It’s pretty easy to see the difference between ク (ku) and ケ (ke) when you’re looking closely at them in a typed format like this. But they will deceive you sometimes when trying to read them on signs/menus.