Katakana "Chu" Coloring Pages

"Chu" in "Stew"

The letters on this coloring page are Katakana "Chu".
The word is "Stew" (Shichu). The "Chu" is not at the start of the word, but the second sound.
The picture on the left shows a soup bowl with stew and a spoon. You can see carrots, potatoes, and broccoli, and warm steam is rising up.
It is a dish that warms you up from the inside when you eat it on a cold day.
Katakana are characters often used to write words from other countries, names of animals and plants, and sounds or animal noises. "Stew" is a word that comes from English.

"チ" and a small "ュ" make 1 sound

Katakana "Chu" is a character you write by putting a small "ュ" after "チ".
Even though you write it with 2 characters, it makes 1 single sound when you read it as Katakana "Chu". Sounds like this are called contracted sounds.
If you write a big "ュ" to make "チユ", it becomes 2 separate sounds: "チ" and "ユ". Writing it small or big changes how you read it!
Try saying "シチュー" (stew) while clapping your hands. For the Katakana "Chu" part, you only need to clap 1 time.

The Kanji that Katakana "Chu" came from

Katakana are characters made by taking a part of a kanji or by using the shape of a kanji as a base.
It is said that long ago, monks started using them to quickly write down how to read the kanji in things like scriptures.
"Chi" was made from the kanji for "thousand" (千). If you put "千" and "チ" side by side, their shapes look very similar, don't they?
The small "yu" (ュ) is just a smaller version of the big "yu" (ユ), and "ユ" was made from the kanji "由".

Tips for writing Katakana "Chu"

"Chu" in Katakana "Chu" has 3 strokes.
For the 1st stroke, make a short line at the very top and sweep down to the left.
For the 2nd stroke, draw a longer line across the middle.
For the 3rd stroke, start near the middle of the line across, go down, and sweep to the left at the end.
The small "yu" has 2 strokes, just like the big "yu".
When writing across, write it small in the bottom-left part of the box. Be careful not to make it the same size as "Chu" in Katakana "Chu".

Words with Katakana "Chu"

Words that start with "Chu" include tulip, a flower that blooms in spring, and tuba, a big golden instrument.
It also pops up a lot in sounds, like the chun-chun of a sparrow and the chu-chu of a mouse.
Try making these sounds yourself and have fun with Katakana "Chu"!

Color the Big Katakana "Chu" with Two Different Colors

The big Katakana "Chu" at the top right is a letter you can color inside the lines.
If you color the big "Chi" and the small "yu" in different colors, you can easily see that it is made of two letters.
If you make "Chi" orange like a carrot, and the small "yu" green like broccoli, they will look like the ingredients in a stew!
It is also fun to change colors for each stroke, starting from stroke 1 and stroke 2 in the stroke order.

A White Stew with Colorful Ingredients

If it is cream stew, leave the soup white or color it light cream color. If you want to make beef stew, dark brown is great.
Color the carrots orange, the potatoes light yellow, and the broccoli green to make the ingredients stand out!
If you color the edge of the spoon a little bit with gray, it will look silver.
Leave the steam white to make it look nice and hot!

Tracing Practice: Two Letters in One Set

In the boxes at the bottom right, there are 4 sets of light gray Katakana "Chu". The "Chi" is in the left box, and the small "yu" is in the right box.
Hold your pencil correctly and trace over the gray lines slowly so you do not go outside the lines.
Use the vertical and horizontal centerlines inside the boxes as a guide, and it will be easy to get the position and size of the letters right.
Check to see if the small "yu" fits in the bottom left of its box, too.
Every time you trace 1 set, say "Chu" out loud, and you will learn the letters and the sound together!

Cream stew became popular in Japan

“Stew” is based on a European dish made by simmering meat and vegetables for a long time.
In fact, the white cream stew made with milk is a way of eating it that grew popular in Japan.
It even started showing up in school lunches, and it became a meal that everyone loves!

The name of the tulip

They say the name tulip came from a word for a turban, the cloth people in Turkey wrap around their heads.
That is because the shape of the flower looked like a rounded turban!

Animal sounds are different in other countries

In Japan, we write a mouse's squeak as “chu chu.”
But in English, they write it like “squeak.”
Isn't it neat how the same sound can be heard and written differently depending on the country?

Let's compare Katakana "Chu" to Hiragana "ちゅ"

If you write Katakana "Chu" in hiragana, it is “ちゅ.”
Hiragana “ち” came from the kanji “知,” while Katakana “チ” came from the kanji “千.”
Even though they make the same sound, their original kanji are different! That is why “ち” and “チ” look so different, too.
The small “ゅ” and “ュ” both came from the kanji “由,” so they are like brothers and sisters!