Special Katakana Combinations

Finally, there are some sounds that are specific to foreign loan words and foreign NAMES. Some of them are quite difficult even for Japanese people to say, but they HAD to create them if they wanted to say our names, and the names of our companies. 

For example, there is no hiragana or katakana for the sound “Che”, so it would be very difficult for someone to say the English name Chase in Japanese, right? Well, that would be written like this: 

チェース

See that tiny ェ? Yup, that’s how we do it. 

Small versions of the vowels ア、イ、エ、オ, and more rarely ウ can be used in katakana to create sounds that didn’t exist in Japanese before. SOME of these seem to exist for the sole purpose of teaching Japanese students how to pronounce certain ENGLISH words, so you may actually NEVER see them in Japanese, unless you teach English. 

There are 19 combinations in total. You don’t need to memorize them all, because you’ll get used to them as you see them more and more in katakana. It’s just important to remember that the vowel sounds can be used like this.

Let’s run through them all quickly.

The first 5 are very rare, because it is difficult for Japanese people to say the V sound regardless of whether or not they can write it. Even for words with a V sound in English we’ll usually use バ、ビ、ブ、ベ、and ボ instead. But when it can’t be avoided, or when teaching English pronunciation, THE DAKUTEN mark is used with the katakana ウ like this:

ヴァ、ヴィ、ヴ、ヴェ、ヴォ

Next is the w line

ウィ、ウェ、ウォ.

Type: “wi, we, ulo or uxo” 

You’d think they’d just use ヲ for that last one, but since it is usually pronounced as お, we use ウォ for things like:

vodka - ウォッカ

ふ is the only sound in Japanese close to the English F, so we have to use tiny vowels to get the OTHER possible combinations of F. 

ファ、フィ、フェ、フォ

Type: “fa, fi, fe, fo”

You’ll see these in words like:

フィットネス - fitness 

チェ

Type: “Che” 

チェ we have already seen in the word チェース. It’s also used for this board game:

チェス - chess 

ティ、トゥ

Type: “toli or toxi, tolu toxu”

In native Japanese words, usually the closest thing to the English T is ち so that’s often used in place of it. But we do use ティ for words like:

ティッシュ - tissue 

The sound TU also doesn’t exist in standard Japanese, the closest thing being つ. So FOR The English sound TU we use トゥ. This one is rare, as it’s usually used to explain how to pronounce English words. Here’s an example:

トゥエンティ - twenty  

ディ、ドゥ

Type: “deli or dexi, dolu or doxu”

ディ and ドゥ exist for the same reason as ティ and トゥ. 

Think names like:

ディーン - Dean 

シェ、ジェ

Type: “she, je” 

You’ll see things like シェ and ジェ in names like:

ジェイムス - James