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Japanese chiisai characters in Katakana

Ki (kana)
Image via Wikipedia

Writting the  “chiisai” Japanese characters when using Hiragana(ひらがな)is quite straight forward. Chiisai (小さい) means small, and it helps to make a different sound by combining a character with a chiisai one.

For instance to write ちょっと, you have to type the following keys: “chotto”, which produces the “chiisai yo” and “chiisai tsu” needed to write this Japanese word.

However, it seems that when using Katakana (カタカナ) things become a bit complicated, so here is how to produce the chiisai characters:

ッ (Katakana)

xtu (key sequence)

キャ キュ キョ (Katakana)
kya kyu kyo (key sequence)

シャ シュ ショ (Katakana)
sha shu sho (key sequence)

チャ チュ チョ (Katakana)
cha chu cho (key sequence)

ニャ ニュ ニョ (Katakana)
nya nyu nyo (key sequence)

ヒャ ヒュ ヒョ (Katakana)
hya hyu hyo (key sequence)

ミャ ミュ ミョ (Katakana)
mya myu myo (key sequence)

リャ リュ リョ (Katakana)
rya ryu ryo (key sequence)

ギャ ギュ ギョ (Katakana)
gya gyu gyo (key sequence)

ジャ ジュ ジョ (Katakana)
ja ju jo (key sequence)

ビャ ビュ ビョ (Katakana)
bya byu byo (key sequence)

ピャ ピュ ピョ (Katakana)
pya pyu pyo (key sequence)

Exceptional character.
These are basically used only for technical words.
[Katakana – (key sequence)]
ウィ (uxi)
クァ (kuxa)
クィ (kuxi)
クェ (kuxe)
クォ (kuxo)
ティ (texi)
フュ (fyu)
ディ (dexu)
デュ(dexi)
ヴァ (va)
ヴィ (vi)
ヴェ (ve)
ヴォ (vo)

I came across this trick in Yahoo answers.