I took this shot of an ad hanging on a train somewhere on the Yamanote line in Tokyo. I think it’s a great real-life example of the use of Katakana for foreign city or country names.

To start you off I’ll go through the first line and then you can take it from there.

We put all the first line together and get “Rondon” or London as it is known in English.

You may have noticed that the Japanese can’t pronounce “L” very well, and with good reason, as that letter/sound doesn’t exist in the Japanese language as is most often substituted with an “r” syllable like ra, ri, ru, re, ro.

To approximate the way the Japanese pronounce the “r” sound you need to think of a tone halfway between and the English R and L.

Those of you that are very new to Katakana will probably be wondering what that extra syllable that looks like a dash (ー) in the Katakana for Singapore (シンガポール). I’ve written about this extender in another article that will explain it for you.

Need help with Katakana? Check out my Katakana Starter Kit with a full explanation of Katakana and a worksheet to download.

Katakana	Romaji	Meaning
ロンドン	ro-n-do-n	London
パリ	pa-ri	Paris
バンコク	ba-n-ko-ku	Bangkok
シンガポール	shi-n-ga-po-o-ru	Singapore
ホノルル	ho-no-ru-ru	Honolulu

As an exercise to use your newly found Katakana powers, why not find the Katakana for the following countries. Good luck!

Try Canada, Cuba, Peru, Egypt, France and of course we better not forget Australia ^_^

Once you have done that without peeking, take a look at this comprehensive country name listing from Jim Breen.

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