Katakana "Ja" Coloring Pages

The Katakana "Ja" in "Jam"

This coloring page is for practicing Katakana "Ja".
The word is "Jam". It is a food made by adding sugar to fruit and cooking it down until it gets nice and thick.
On the left, there is a jar of strawberry jam and a slice of bread with lots of jam on it.
A lot of people love to spread jam on bread for breakfast, right?

One sound made of 2 letters

Katakana "Ja" uses two letters, "ジ" and a small "ャ", to make one sound.
Letters like this that use a small "ャ", "ュ", or "ョ" to make one sound are called yo-on.
When you say it out loud, try saying it all at once in one go without breaking up "ジ" and "ヤ".

How the Katakana "Ja" Was Made

Katakana was created long ago by people taking a part of a Kanji or making its shape simpler.
"ジ" is the letter "シ" with two dots added. The dots are also called dakuten.
The original "シ" came from a simplified shape of the Kanji "之".
The small "ャ" is just a smaller version of "ヤ". "ヤ" came from a simplified shape of the Kanji "也".
While Hiragana was made by smoothing out whole Kanji, Katakana was made from parts of Kanji, so it has a lot of straight lines.

How to write Katakana "Ja"

Katakana "Ja" has 5 strokes in all. You make it by adding 2 tiny dots to Katakana "Shi," which has 3 strokes.
To write Katakana "Shi," put 2 dots on the left side, stacked from top to bottom.
For the 3rd stroke, sweep your pen upward from the bottom left to the top right.
It is easy to mix up with Katakana "Tsu," so watch how the dots line up and which way the 3rd stroke goes!
At the very end, write the 2 short dots side by side on the top right.

Small "ャ" has 2 strokes. The first stroke is a line that bends like "フ", and the second stroke is a slanted line that crosses it, written from top to bottom.
Write small letters about one-fourth the size of the box. Place them toward the bottom left of the box when writing horizontally, and toward the top right of the box when writing vertically.
If you write "ャ" too big, it will be read as two sounds, "ジヤ", so be careful!

Words with Katakana "Ja"

Katakana is often used to write words that came from other countries.
"Jam" is also a word that came from English.
Words that start with Katakana "Ja" include jungle, where lots of trees grow, jump, where you leap high, and potato (ja-ga-i-mo), which goes in curry.
There are also words with Katakana "Ja" in the middle, like pajamas that you wear to sleep.
See how many words with Katakana "Ja" you can say with someone in your family!

Color the Big Katakana "Ja" in Your Favorite Color

Try coloring the big outlined Katakana "Ja" in the top right with your favorite color.
If you color it with red or pink like strawberry jam, the letter will look sweet and yummy.
To keep it neat, color along the outside edges slowly first so you do not go out of the lines, then fill in the inside.

Color the Jam in Clear Red

Try coloring the strawberry jam inside the jar with red or dark red.
If you leave a little white space near the edge of the jar, it will look like shiny glass.
If you color the lid with a red and white check pattern or gold, it will become a cute jam jar.

Color the Bread a Toasty Golden Brown

Color the crust around the bread golden brown or brown, and color the inside cream color.
If you color the jam on top of it with the same red as the jar, everyone can tell right away that it is bread with jam on it.
If you want to make it blueberry jam, you can color it with purple, too.

Trace the Letters Carefully, One Pair at a Time

In the bottom right boxes, there are 4 pairs of light gray Katakana "Ja", with 2 letters in each pair.
Try tracing slowly over the light letters using a dark colored pencil or a soft pencil.
If you use the vertical and horizontal centerlines in the boxes as a guide, you can easily see the difference in size between the big letter and the small letter.
It is easy to remember if you say the stroke order out loud while you write.
Did you write the 3rd stroke of "Shi" flicking upward from the bottom?

Why Jam Gets Thick and Gooey

Fruit has something inside it called pectin.
When pectin comes together with sugar and the fruit's sourness, it has the power to turn thick like jelly.
That is why boiling fruit and sugar together turns it into thick, gooey jam.

A Great Way to Keep Food Fresh

Jam was invented to make fruit last a long time.
When you put in a lot of sugar, the fruit does not go bad easily.
Even long ago before people had fridges, this was a clever trick so leftover fruit would not go to waste.

All Kinds of Jam

In Japan, strawberry jam is very popular.
There are many other kinds of jam too, like blueberry, apple, and marmalade made from orange peels.
If you made jam with your favorite fruit, what color do you think it would be?

Let's Try Writing in Romaji

When you write Katakana "Ja" in Romaji, it becomes ja or zya.
There are 2 ways to write Romaji. Signs at train stations and on roads often use the way with "j".
You will learn Romaji in your Japanese class around 3rd grade.
It is also written on station names and road signs, so try to read it when you find it!