Katakana Letter Gi

Enter gi, then convert the result to katakana.

With romaji input in hiragana mode, gi first produces ぎ; select katakana before confirming to get ギ. Microsoft IME documentation reviewed in 2026 lists F7 for converting active input to full-width katakana.

What does ギ sound like?

ギ reads gi; キ reads ki.

The dakuten—the two small marks beside キ—changes the consonant from k to g. The same text can be encoded as the single character ギ or as キ followed by a combining dakuten, a mark that joins the character before it.

Why was katakana made?

Katakana began as compact notes for reading Chinese texts in Japanese.

In the early 9th century, Buddhist scholars used abbreviated parts of man’yōgana—Chinese characters used to write Japanese sounds—as notes beside Chinese texts. Katakana grew through this reading practice rather than from one inventor's design. The base キ derives from a shortened form of 幾.

Katakana later appeared in academic and official writing. Today it is used for many foreign names and loanwords, technical terms, animal and plant names, sound effects, and emphasis. Seeing ギ in a word alone does not tell you that the word came from another language.