Learn the Katakana Y column and more digraphs
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| Hi everyone! Welcome to BASIC JAPANESE WRITING. The fastest, easiest and most fun way to master the Japanese alphabet! |
| You've learned these 40 katakana characters from the previous lessons. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn three katakana characters in the Y column, and the rest of the digraphs in katakana. |
| ヤユヨ |
| The first katakana character for this lesson is ヤ. ヤ. |
| ヤ actually looks like its hiragana counterpart but a bit more angular and without this stroke. |
| Katakana ヤ is written in 2 strokes. |
| The first stroke is a long diagonal line going up then it turns sharply inwards and down. |
| The second stroke is a tall diagonal line which cuts through the first stroke around 1/3 from the left. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| The third katakana for this lesson is ユ. ユ. |
| Imagine ユ as the periscope of a U-BOAT under water. |
| Katakana ユ is written in 2 strokes. |
| The first stroke starts as a short horizontal line, then it turns sharply and continues down as a vertical line. |
| The second stroke is a long horizontal line touching the end of the first stroke. |
| Make sure the second stroke is longer than the horizontal part of the first stroke so that your ユ won't be confused with a katakana コ. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| Our final character for this lesson is the katakana ヨ. ヨ. |
| It's like a YOKE pulled by two oxen. |
| Katakana ヨ is written in 3 strokes. |
| The first stroke starts as a short horizontal line, then it turns sharply and continues down as a vertical line. |
| The second stroke is a horizontal line which touches the center of the vertical part of the first stroke. |
| The third stroke is another horizontal line, this time touching the bottom of the first stroke. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| Just like in hiragana, digraphs in katakana are also formed by adding a small ヤ, ユ, or ヨ to a consonant + "i" syllable. |
| Remember, they are said for the same duration as all the previous syllables that you've learned. Pronounce them by gliding to the Y-sound and do not pronounce the "i" sound. |
| キャ, キュ, キョ, ギャ, ギュ, ギョ. |
| シャ, シュ, ショ, ジャ, ジュ, ジョ. |
| チャ, チュ, チョ, ニャ, ニュ, ニョ. |
| ヒャ, ヒュ, ヒョ, ビャ, ビュ, ビョ, ピャ, ピュ, ピョ. |
| ミャ, ミュ, ミョ, リャ, リュ, リョ. |
| Let's see all the characters again. ヤ, ユ, ヨ. |
| And the digraphs: キャ, キュ, キョ, ギャ, ギュ, ギョ. |
| シャ, シュ, ショ, ジャ, ジュ, ジョ. |
| チャ, チュ, チョ, ニャ, ニュ, ニョ. |
| ヒャ, ヒュ, ヒョ, ビャ, ビュ, ビョ, ピャ, ピュ, ピョ. |
| ミャ, ミュ, ミョ, リャ, リュ, リョ. |
| Quiz time! |
| Now, let's review what you've learned. I'll show you a character or group of characters and give you time to say them. Ready? |
| ヤ. |
| ル. |
| ひ. Remember the smiling mouth going HIHIHI? |
| ユ. |
| ギ. |
| す. |
| ジョ. |
| ダイヤ. This is the time table for buses and trains. |
| メニュー. This means "menu." |
| ジュース. It's "juice." |
| Tシャツ. It means "t-shirt." |
| バーベキュー. This means "barbecue." |
| チョコレート. This is "chocolate." |
| ニャーニャー. This is a cat's "meow" in Japanese. |
| キャッシュカード. This refers to a bank card. |
| Great job! As I've said before, Japanese uses 3 scripts: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. However, recently Japanese also started to make use of Roman letters just like in Tシャツ. We even have the expression "NG" which is an abbreviation of "no good." |
| Ok, let's wrap up this lesson by recapping what you've learned. |
| In this lesson, you learned the katakana characters ヤ, ユ and ヨ and all the Japanese digraphs. |
| よくできました！You've now mastered 89 Japanese characters. Only 3 left to go! |
| If cats say "nyaa nyaa," what do dogs say? Find out next time when we talk about the final 3 characters in katakana! |
| Before you go, practice writing the following words on your own! |
| [pause] |
| And to learn MORE Japanese, go to JapanesePod101.com. |
| Hey guys! How many ways are YOU studying with JapanesePod101? From mobile apps, to Facebook pages, to our popular vocabulary lists, JapanesePod101 offers many different outlets for our listeners to study with us. Find out 15 different ways to study Japanese for FREE with JapanesePod101 now! |
| See you in the next lesson! またね！ |
14 Comments
HideDo you know other words with these katakana?
Shaneさん
Thank you so much for your comment😄
Could you email us at contactus@JapanesePod101.com so that we can help you better?
Please let us know if you have any questions :)
Sincerely
Ryoma
Team JapanesePod101.com
For some reason, I can't play the video. I don't know why, please help 🙏 I want to study so bad
Hi Jonah,
Thank you for the question!
Because シュール (surrealism) is a loan word,
and that's how we write na-adjectives with loan words.
e.g. ラッキー(lucky)な
Thank you for studying with us!
Sincerely,
Erica
Team JapanesePod101.com
Hi,
Why is シュールな spelled with Hiragana 'na' and not Katakana 'ナ'?
Hi Kelcey,
We include a limited number of words in the [Vocabulary] section, however, to check out more words/sentences, please use our Dictionary (includes audio):
https://www.japanesepod101.com/japanese-dictionary/
From there you can add the entries to your Wordbank and then at Wordbank (https://www.japanesepod101.com/learningcenter/account/wordbank), Sync to Flashcards.👍
You can also create your own Custom Lists. Please check out this link for more information:
https://www.japanesepod101.com/custom-lists/
We hope this helps! In case of any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
Cristiane
Team JapanesePod101.com
Why aren't all the words and characters we go over available to put in the flashcards after each lesson?
Hi カレン,
Good job!
Keep up studying well and in case of any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Cristiane (クリスチアネ)
Team JapanesePod101.com
Only one more lesson in this series to go (・о・)
These videos have been very helpful, ありがとございます！
Heathさん、
こんにちは！
I'm very sorry for the late reply!!
If you hear the sound and see the second character, you'd notice the difference.
The second character in those sounds are written smaller than normal size. And the sound
is one syllable, not two, although you can see 2 characters.
For instance, ミャ is not pronounced as [mi ya], but it's [mya] as in Myanmar (Burma), a country name.
Hope this helps!
Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com
This is a good series for repeating what I learned before. But, there is something I don't understand, what is the difference between ミャ and normal katakana character Na, and the other similar diagrams and katakana characters? Because they sound same to me.