Katakana: the complete chart, and the pairs that trip everyone

The long-vowel bar

Katakana marks a long vowel with a bar — ー — instead of adding a second vowel character. The bar holds the preceding vowel for one extra beat, and the beat count changes the word.

• コーヒー kōhī — coffee. Four beats: ko–o–hi–i.
• ケーキ kēki — cake. Three beats.
• ビール bīru — beer. Three beats, and ビル without the bar is a building.

Written vertically, the bar is drawn vertically too. It is the single most common thing beginners drop when writing loanwords, and dropping it usually produces a real but different word.

Voiced forms and combinations

Nothing new to learn here — the marks behave exactly as they do in hiragana. Two strokes voice the consonant; a small circle on the H row makes a p.

Contracted sounds work the same way too, and they do most of their work inside loanwords: ニュース nyūsu, ショップ shoppu, ジュース jūsu.

Read these before you finish the chart

Most katakana words are words you already know wearing a Japanese accent. Say each one aloud at an even pace and the meaning usually arrives on its own — which is exactly why katakana is the fastest script to get an early win from.

Two patterns explain most loanwords. Japanese has no L, so every L becomes an R — エレベーター is erebētā. And Japanese shortens long borrowings aggressively: sumātofon becomes スマホ sumaho.

Writing your name in katakana

Names are transcribed by sound, not by spelling. Break the name into syllables, find the closest katakana for each, and remember that every consonant except ン must carry a vowel. A long vowel takes the bar. It is worth doing on paper once: it is the first genuinely personal thing you can write in Japanese.