T

たちつてと — The T Row

01

Why the T row?

The T row adds two more irregular romanisations to the one you met in the S row. た, て, と follow the regular pattern — consonant 't' plus a vowel — but is read chi (not ti) and is read tsu (not tu). It also packs in some of the most-used vocabulary in everyday Japanese: 月 (moon, month), 時 (time), 手 (hand), the past-tense verb ending 〜た, and the て-form that grammar textbooks beat into your head.

Memory trick: think “tah, chee, tsoo, teh, toh” — watch the 'ch' on ち and the 'ts' on つ. When t meets i in Japanese you get chi; when it meets u you get tsu.
02

Pronunciation at a glance

KanaRomajiPronunciation
taLike "ta" in "tall"
chiLike "chee" in "cheese"
tsuLike "ts" in "cats" + "oo"
teLike "te" in "tell"
toLike "to" in "told"
03

Words you can read with the T row

With the vowels, K row, S row, and T row in your toolkit, you can read essential everyday vocabulary — time, month, hand, friend, year, tomorrow. These words use only characters from the first four rows of the chart. Print these as flashcards →

tatevertical · shield
takooctopus · kite
chikaiclose, near (preview — uses い)
chizumap (preview — uses ず)
tsukimoon · month
tsukuedesk
tehand
tokeiclock, watch
tokitime, occasion
toshiyear · age
ashitatomorrow
utasong
shitabelow, under
otokoman
chichifather (one's own)
04

What's next

After the T row, the next step is the な-row (な に ぬ ね の) — back to the regular pattern (every character is a clean consonant + vowel, no irregulars to memorise). From there the chart keeps filling in row by row.