Hiragana · t row
て (te): hiragana stroke order and pronunciation
て is the hiragana for te, the e sound of the t row. It is written with one stroke. Its katakana twin is テ (te).
- Romaji
- te
- Strokes
- 1
- Listen
- Play te
How to say te
Tip: like 'te' in 'ten'
In words
The course does not attach an example word to て when it introduces it; you will meet it in the lessons that follow.
The t row
The t row keeps one consonant and runs through the five vowels, so て differs from its neighbours only in the vowel. Reading the row as a set fixes the pattern:
Course words written with て
2 words from the beginner word lists use て. Each links to the list it belongs to.
- きっさてん喫茶店kissatencoffee shopFood and drink vocabulary
- はじめましてhajimemashiteNice to meet youGreetings and polite phrases
て in a sentence
From the beginner stories, where て turns up in running text rather than on its own.
「きて！」
"Come in!" from The trip I didn't want
「いいから、たべて。」
"Never mind that, eat." from The pudding
Rules that involve て
Dakuten — the voicing mark
Two small strokes (゛) on a kana voice it: the shape stays the same but your vocal cords buzz. You'll meet 5 of these in the k→g row.
- か → がvoiced k becomes g
- き → ぎvoiced k becomes g
Built from て
With dakuten
- でde
The same sound in katakana
Stroke-order data from KanjiVG by Ulrich Apel, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.
Practice this in Open Lingo
The Open Lingo Japanese course teaches て with tracing practice, a listening drill and spaced review, then uses it in real words within the same lesson.
Keep going
- ChartKatakana chartAll 46 basic katakana plus voiced and yōon combinations, with romaji, stroke-order diagrams, example loanwords and audio.
- Word listGreetings and polite phrasesEssential Japanese greetings and polite phrases for beginners, with hiragana, romaji, meaning and audio, taken from the Open Lingo course.
- Word listNumbersJapanese numbers for beginners: Sino-Japanese いち, に, さん, the native ひとつ, ふたつ counting set, and hundreds, thousands and 万, with audio.
- ToolNumbers 1 to 100 and converterJapanese numbers 0 to 100 in kana, kanji and romaji, a converter up to 999,999, and the rules for 4, 7, 9, sound-changing hundreds and 万.