Katakana ハ行~ン and Loanword Notation

What You Will Learn in This Unit

You will read and write the remaining katakana characters: ハ行, マ行, ヤ行, ラ行, ワ行, and ン. You will learn how to place the long vowel mark ー correctly, and the character combinations used only when writing loanwords. You will also check how English words and the names of countries and people are converted into Japanese sounds and written in katakana.

The Remaining Characters and the Long Vowel Mark ー

The remaining katakana characters are written by row as shown below. Romanization is given in parentheses.

The ヤ行 row has only three characters: ヤ, ユ, and ヨ. There are no イ-column or エ-column characters. ン is romanized as n. ン is not used as the first character of a katakana word. ヲ is hardly used in modern katakana words, so it is not covered in this unit.

The long vowel mark ー is a horizontal line that lengthens the vowel of the preceding character by one more beat. The vowel that is lengthened depends on the vowel row of the preceding character. After an ア-row character, ー lengthens a; after an イ-row character, i; after a ウ-row character, u; after an エ-row character, e; and after an オ-row character, o. In romanization, the lengthened vowel is marked with a horizontal macron (ā, ī, ū, ē, ō). For example, in コーヒー(kōhī), the first ー lengthens the o of コ(ko), and the second ー lengthens the i of ヒ(hi).

Character Combinations Used Only for Loanwords

When writing loanwords, the small characters ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ, and ォ are attached after a basic character to preserve the sound of the original word. Such combinations do not appear in native Japanese words and are used only for loanwords. Representative combinations are shown below.

ヴ is the character used to write the v sound of the original word. Small characters such as ァ, ィ, ェ, and ォ are attached after ヴ, written as ヴァ, ヴィ, ヴェ, and ヴォ. However, words already established with the バ character, such as バイオリン, keep that spelling.