シ/ツ and ソ/ン: The Four Katakana That Slow You Down

You can read every row of the katakana chart now — yesterday you finished with ハ マ ヤ ラ ワ ン and words like コーヒー（こーひー）(coffee) and ホテル（ほてる）(hotel). But there are four characters that still make you pause mid-sentence: シ, ツ, ソ, ン. They are not hard because they are rare. They are hard because they look like each other. Today we fix that with stroke direction and angle, not memorisation tricks.

The two pairs

Group them by where the long stroke points and where the short strokes sit:

• シ (shi) and ソ (so): the two short strokes are on the left, stacked almost vertically, and the long stroke sweeps up from the bottom left to the top right.
• ツ (tsu) and ン (n): the two short strokes are on the top, side by side, and the long stroke sweeps down from the top left to the bottom right.

That is the whole difference in direction. シ and ソ share a left-side start; ツ and ン share a top-side start. If you remember nothing else, remember that シ and ソ begin on the left, and ツ and ン begin at the top.

The angle that separates シ from ソ

Both シ and ソ have short strokes on the left, so direction alone is not enough. The difference is the angle of the long stroke and the slant of the short strokes:

• In シ, the long stroke is fairly vertical — it rises steeply. The two short strokes are almost vertical too, like two little dashes.
• In ソ, the long stroke is more diagonal — it leans to the right. The two short strokes are also more slanted, almost horizontal.

A useful image: シ looks like a person standing up straight (vertical), ソ looks like someone leaning back (diagonal). That is not etymology — just a shape mnemonic — but it works because it matches the actual stroke angle.

The angle that separates ツ from ン

Same logic, flipped:

• In ツ, the two short strokes on top are vertical dashes, and the long stroke is a steep diagonal going down-right.
• In ン, the two short strokes are almost horizontal, and the long stroke is a shallow diagonal — flatter, more sideways.

So ツ is the “tall” one and ン is the “flat” one. When you see ン in パン（ぱん）(bread), the long stroke is nearly horizontal. When you see ツ in ツアー（つあー）(tour), it drops more steeply.

Drill: read these out loud

Cover the romaji and read each word. Then check.

• シート（しーと）(seat)
• ソース（そーす）(sauce)
• ツアー（つあー）(tour)
• パン（ぱん）(bread)
• シャツ（しゃつ）(shirt)
• ソフト（そふと）(soft)
• コンサート（こんさーと）(concert)
• シンガー（しんがー）(singer)

Notice シャツ（しゃつ）(shirt): it contains both シ and ツ, and the small ャ. If you can read that without stopping, you are winning.

Write them, don't just look

Looking is passive. Take a pen and write each character five times, saying the sound. The muscle memory of the stroke direction — left-start for シ/ソ, top-start for ツ/ン — is what makes the difference stick. This is the same principle as yesterday's rows: your hand learns faster than your eye.

A quick check with a friend

If you have a study partner in your city, ask them to write one of the four at random and you say which it is. If you are alone, use a flashcard app that shows the character and you type the romaji. The goal is not speed yet — it is accuracy. Speed comes tomorrow.

The one rule to keep

When you see a katakana word with a long stroke and two short strokes, ask: where do the short strokes sit? Left → シ or ソ. Top → ツ or ン. Then check the angle: vertical-ish → シ or ツ; diagonal/flat → ソ or ン. That two-step check takes half a second now, and soon it will be automatic.

Tomorrow we put everything under the clock.