Thanks to variations in handwriting and typefaces, especially the more stylized ones, the only way to be absolutely sure if you’re looking at シ v. ツ or ソ v. ン is by which makes more sense.
Like, you’re probably thinking, dude the strokes are vertical in the two and horizontal in the other two. Hahaha yeah, we need to tell Japanese type designers about that
My worst nightmare
Lol.
I remember シ because ships move horizontally. ツ because tsunamis come crashing down.
I don’t have any tricks for the last two.
omg yes i still struggle with those
The Japanese sign language for す (not つ) is two fingers pointing straight down. The sign for (し) is two fingers pointing straight ahead. I use them together to say すし and it helped to iron out which is which. It’s embarrassing that it took so long to be sure of them, since one is in my name.
Really not much different than learning the letters d, b, q, and p! Maybe even throw in g. You’ll get there.
N, Shi, So, Tsu.
Basically つ is ツ andし is シ, they’re written in similar stroke order. The sort of “smile” to these katakana, the longest stroke is easy to remember where it starts and ends by comparing its hiragana Like this:
In a similar way し is more outwardly and つ is more closed off and the katakana is too! But remembering which is ソ so and ン n is a different story altogether!
I just think of Shinji from Evangelion, his name is written in katakana and the ん is the same stroke order and direction as し. It looks interesting all together
シンジ
Chi and shi are hard to tell
My favorite is when textbooks have a ジョンソンさん
Same thing with Korean but like… all the letters… “circle here, line there, that says o? No? It says ou? Why? Dammit what’s the system, how are they pronounced differently (which they are and are not) and if you don’t believe me here: 오어아이요여야애에유우으
Goin through this in my 102 class rn….hurts my brain
LMAO my last name in katakana is シソン
N-Shi-So-Tsu. Did I get it? 😀
The shinkansen goes fast so the シ and ン are trailing behind
Of the remaining ツ has tsu eyes open and ソ has only one.
Does ノ have any arms? No…
I always liked to picture them as being bounded by triangles, ン and シ point to the right, ソ and ツ point down.
dont even get me started on The chinese alphabet aka zhuyin look it up they fucking copied katakana
I tend to think of it like つ is friendly sounding and ツ is the face for the shrug emoticon which is a friendly emoticon so they go together. シ is just the other one’s evil twin so that’s し.
23 comments
You forgot ノ
Thanks to variations in handwriting and typefaces, especially the more stylized ones, the only way to be absolutely sure if you’re looking at シ v. ツ or ソ v. ン is by which makes more sense.
Like, you’re probably thinking, dude the strokes are vertical in the two and horizontal in the other two. Hahaha yeah, we need to tell Japanese type designers about that
My worst nightmare
Lol.
I remember シ because ships move horizontally.
ツ because tsunamis come crashing down.
I don’t have any tricks for the last two.
omg yes i still struggle with those
The Japanese sign language for す (not つ) is two fingers pointing straight down. The sign for (し) is two fingers pointing straight ahead. I use them together to say すし and it helped to iron out which is which. It’s embarrassing that it took so long to be sure of them, since one is in my name.
Really not much different than learning the letters d, b, q, and p! Maybe even throw in g. You’ll get there.
N, Shi, So, Tsu.
Basically つ is ツ andし is シ, they’re written in similar stroke order. The sort of “smile” to these katakana, the longest stroke is easy to remember where it starts and ends by comparing its hiragana
Like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Shi_Tsu_Katakana_Character_Difference.svg
In a similar way し is more outwardly and つ is more closed off and the katakana is too!
But remembering which is ソ so and ン n is a different story altogether!
I just think of Shinji from Evangelion, his name is written in katakana and the ん is the same stroke order and direction as し. It looks interesting all together
シンジ
Chi and shi are hard to tell
My favorite is when textbooks have a ジョンソンさん
Same thing with Korean but like… all the letters… “circle here, line there, that says o? No? It says ou? Why? Dammit what’s the system, how are they pronounced differently (which they are and are not) and if you don’t believe me here: 오어아이요여야애에유우으
Goin through this in my 102 class rn….hurts my brain
LMAO my last name in katakana is シソン
N-Shi-So-Tsu.
Did I get it? 😀
The shinkansen goes fast so the シ and ン are trailing behind
Of the remaining ツ has tsu eyes open and ソ has only one.
Does ノ have any arms? No…
I always liked to picture them as being bounded by triangles, ン and シ point to the right, ソ and ツ point down.
dont even get me started on The chinese alphabet aka zhuyin look it up they fucking copied katakana
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b05Cmy_mSA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b05Cmy_mSA)
シvsツ funny cartoon
But what about ソ vs リ?
I still just guess and I’m mostly right
I tend to think of it like つ is friendly sounding and ツ is the face for the shrug emoticon which is a friendly emoticon so they go together. シ is just the other one’s evil twin so that’s し.
I still struggle with ソ and ン though.
I’m learning Katakana soon and this scares me