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イ (i) – Katakana



Pronunciation

– Pronounced as the Japanese ‘i’. Sounds closest to an English ‘ea’ as in ‘pea’. Say it aloud after you hear the audio.

About

い in hiragana or イ in katakana (romanised i) is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical (left part) of the kanji character 伊. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the second position of the alphabet, between あ and う

Mnemonics

Mnemonic 1: The character represents a peacock from a side view. You can say its leg perfectly straight, connecting to its body. You can’t see its second leg since it’s on a side view.

Mnemonic 2: This symbol, which appears in some kanji, represents a person. Remember “I am a person”.

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