te / テ
The fourth T-row katakana — a clean “te” in three strokes. Same sound as hiragana て, fronting television, test, and table.
Pronunciation
The character テ represents the syllable 'te', identical in pronunciation to hiragana て. Extremely common in loanwords — television, test, table, hotel, party, theme, and many more.
テ carries the same “te” as hiragana て. It opens a wide field of loanwords: テレビ (television), テスト (test), テーブル (table), テニス (tennis). Its two bars come straight from the top of its parent kanji 天.
How to write テ
Trace テ 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 horizontal stroke across the top, left to right.
A second, longer horizontal stroke below it, left to right.
A stroke descending from the centre of the second bar, curving to the lower left.
Origin
Katakana テ was taken from the kanji 天 (te / ten, “heaven” or “sky”). Its stacked bars and central descender are lifted from the top of 天.
Common words starting with テ
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing テ 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. Drill the katakana you’ve learned with spaced-repetition flashcards — the fastest way to make them stick.