Katakana quiz and practice test

How does the katakana quiz work?

Pick a set, a direction and a way to answer, then press Start. The quiz asks every katakana in the set once, in random order. Kana to sound shows a katakana and asks how it is read, Sound to kana gives the sound and asks for the katakana, and Both alternates between the two.

You can tap one of four answers or type the sound in rōmaji. The wrong answers come from the sets you picked, so a quiz on the basics never offers ジャ as a choice. A typed answer checks itself as soon as it is a whole sound, and only n waits for Enter. Both Hepburn and Kunrei spellings count, so tsu and tu are both right for ツ. Sound to kana questions are answered by tapping, because a Japanese keyboard would spell the katakana for you.

When you miss, the quiz shows the right sound and a hint to remember it by, and the katakana comes back before the end of the run. Only your first answer counts toward the score.

What does the result show?

The result lays the set out in chart order with every katakana you missed marked, then lists the pairs you mixed up most, up to three, such as ソ and ン. Under them, a line says how many of the katakana you answered come back later today, tomorrow, or further out.

When does a missed katakana come back?

Every katakana sits in one of six review boxes. A right answer moves it up one box and a miss moves it down two, and the boxes wait 10 minutes, a day, 3 days, a week, 3 weeks and 2 months before the kana is due again. A kana climbs at most one box a day, except out of the first, and from the fourth box the course counts it as mastered. The hiragana quiz explains the ladder and why it is capped.

Your answers stay in this browser, with no account. Yomikana, Yomimaru's free kana course, reads the same record, so its reviews include whatever you missed here.

How to learn katakana after hiragana

Katakana spells the same sounds as hiragana, so learning it means 46 new shapes, not new sounds: カ is ka exactly as か is. The name says where the shapes come from. 片 (kata) means a piece, and each katakana began as a piece of a kanji, a shorthand Buddhist scholars in Nara wrote beside Chinese texts in the early 9th century. カ comes from 加か, and ハ and ニ are simply 八はち and 二に (Wikipedia, 片仮名かたかな).

Seven of the 46 look almost like their hiragana, so they come nearly free: か カ, き キ, へ ヘ, り リ, も モ, せ セ and や ヤ. The rest are new shapes, mostly straighter and sharper than hiragana.

What changes is the job. Katakana writes words borrowed from other languages, such as カメラ (kamera, camera), foreign names, and words a writer wants to stand out, the way italics do in English. When each Japanese script is used has the full story. Loanwords lean on three marks that hiragana words rarely need:

• ー, the long vowel mark, holds the vowel before it for one more beat: コーヒー is kōhī, coffee. Hiragana writes a long vowel with a second vowel kana instead, as in おかあさん.
• A small ッ doubles the consonant after it, a short stop: ベッド is beddo, bed.
• A small ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ or ォ after a full kana makes a sound Japanese did not have: フ and a small ォ read fo, as in フォーク, fork.

Which katakana look alike?

Katakana's short, straight strokes leave many shapes one stroke apart, and that stroke is the tell:

A few katakana are drawn almost exactly like kanji: カ and 力 (power), ロ and 口 (mouth), エ and 工 (craft), ニ and 二 (two), ハ and 八 (eight), タ and 夕 (evening). The word around them decides. Inside a run of katakana, it is katakana.

Extended katakana: ファ, ティ and other new sounds

Loanwords brought sounds Japanese had no kana for, so katakana writes them with a full kana and a small vowel kana, as in ソファ (sofa) and パーティー (pātī). The quiz leaves these out, because it asks the 104 katakana the course teaches, and each one reads from parts you already know: ティ is テ with its vowel swapped for a small ィ, and ヴ is ウ with a dakuten. The chart lists all 21.

Printable katakana test

For practice on paper, the printable katakana test (PDF) has four pages. The first two list all 104 katakana in a shuffled order, each with a line for its rōmaji. The third gives the 46 basic sounds to write in katakana, a box for each, so it doubles as a writing practice sheet. The last page has the answers. It asks the sounds in a different order from the hiragana quiz's test, so you can take both.

Katakana reading practice: from words to stories

The words above are where katakana starts paying off: a menu, a shop sign or a train station is full of them. The marks that change a word, a dakuten or a small ッ, are the subject of the guide to dakuten, handakuten and small っ. In the Yomikana course, every katakana comes with a mnemonic and its sound, the single kana with an animated stroke order, and the trail adds words you can already read as rows unlock. Once single words come without the rōmaji, move on to sentences: Yomimaru's short Japanese stories for beginners are free to read, with furigana over the kanji.