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!

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 typed format like this. But they will deceive you sometimes when trying to read them on signs/menus.

Recall Practice

Time to practice! Just like in all lessons, do this as many times as it takes for you to feel like you can confidently select the correct answer without guessing.

This recall covers アイウエオ and カキクケコ together.

Good job! Continue practicing until you can confidently complete this with ease. Use the buttons below to restart the practice (challenge yourself with inverted and challenge mode).

Once this practice feels easy to you it’s time to take a quick break and then move on to the next lesson.