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け and ケ

Pronunciation

“KE” in Ken.

け Memorization Story

The right side of the hiragana け looks like a scimitar or curved sword or dagger, to me. The first stroke over on the left will show up in a few other hiragana, so we’ll make a standard story for it, that we can use every time. For this stroke, imagine a guy called Kenny. Kenny is ALWAYS reaching out to grab HOLD of something. He really enjoys holding literally anything. He’s always going to be over on the left reaching out to hold stuff over on the right… Also he’s got a really long stretched out head. 

So, here, Kenny is reaching out to grab hold of the scimitar. Coincidentally, SWORD in Japanese is けん. But we won’t learn the ん sound until much later, so don’t worry about that just yet.

ケ Memorization Story

The katakana ケ on the other hand looks an AWFUL lot like the katakana ク. Except that the curved line on the right is moved to the middle of the character for ケ. ケ looks like the scene of a disaster. A cake is mid-fall off the waiter’s cake tray.








Writing

 
 

The first stroke in the hiragana for け is similar to the first stroke in い, but less rounded when we cut up to the next stroke, due to where the next stroke STARTS. It’s a sharper turn. Thus, why we created Kenny.

Font Examples

け　　ケ

け　　ケ

け　　ケ

け　　ケ

け　　ケ

 

Typing

Hiragana け
Type the letters “ke”.

Katakana ケ
Type "ke" and press the F7 key, or press spacebar until the katakana appears. 

Word(s)

けいかく

plan

ケーキ

cake

 

Speaking of cake, the word for cake in Japanese is a great chance for us to introduce a new concept! 

See the long dash in ケーキ? When that dash is used with katakana, it indicates that the vowel sound before it should be EXTENDED for one extra beat, or mora! The vowel sound in ケ is “え”, so this ー would sound like: “ケー”. 

There are various ways to do this with hiragana, and we can actually see the first one right here in the word けいかく. What that い does is EXTEND the vowel sound before it IF the vowel sound is an い or an え sound. The vowel sound in けいかく is え, so what this word REALLY sounds like, as you may have noticed, is けーかく . NOT けeeかく. I said that い does this for the い vowel sound as well. Well, we actually saw this earlier in the word いいえ where we had 2 moras of い.

We’ll learn how to extend the other vowel sounds later in the video! 

 

Historical Form

Hiragana
計→け

HISTORICAL VERSION

 

Katakana
介→ケ

PART BORROWED

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ToKini Kana Introduction Page あ・ア い・イ う・ウ え・エ お・オ Consonant Vowel Combinations か・カ き・キ く・ク け・ケ こ・コ Kana Reading Practice 1 さ・サ し・シ す・ス せ・セ そ・ソ た・タ ち・チ つ・ツ て・テ と・ト Kana Reading Practice 2 な・ナ に・ニ ぬ・ヌ ね・ネ の・ノ は・ハ ひ・ヒ ふ・フ へ・ヘ ほ・ホ Kana Reading Practice 3 ま・マ み・ミ む・ム め・メ も・モ や・ヤ ゆ・ユ よ・ヨ Kana Reading Practice 4 ら・ラ り・リ る・ル れ・レ ろ・ロ わ・ワ を・ヲ ん・ン Kana Reading Practice 5 Dakuten, Han-Dakuten, and Sokuon Kana Reading Practice 6 Kana Combinations Kana Reading Practice 7 Special Katakana Combinations The End Kana Worksheets