yu / ユ
The middle of the Y row — “yu” in two strokes. Same sound as hiragana ゆ, opening user, uniform, and humor.
Pronunciation
The character ユ represents the syllable 'yu', identical in pronunciation to hiragana ゆ. Common in loanwords for menu, uniform, news, interview, review, user, humor, and many compounds.
ユ matches hiragana ゆ — the same “yu.” It opens loanwords like ユーザー (user), ユニフォーム (uniform), ユーモア (humor), and appears in メニュー (menu) and ニュース (news). Its small form ュ builds sounds like シュ (shu) and キュ (kyu).
How to write ユ
Trace ユ on the canvas at the top of the page. Animated arrows show each stroke's direction; trace along them and the stroke fills in. Each numbered step below explains what that stroke does.
A stroke from the upper left, across to the right, then turning down — the top and right side.
A horizontal stroke along the bottom, left to right, closing ユ into its shape.
Origin
Katakana ユ comes from the lower part of the kanji 由 (yu, “reason” or “cause”). That fragment became ユ, the rest set aside.
Common words starting with ユ
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing ユ by hand — the top row shows the stroke order to trace, then fill the blank squares.
Lock it into memory
Reading is only half of it. Write the katakana you’ve learned from memory in the trainer — the ones you struggle with come back sooner, until they stick.