Hiragana Letter E

The Hiragana Letter E at U+3048 represents the Japanese mora e, pronounced like a short “eh” sound. It belongs to the Hiragana block and is one of the five basic vowel kana used for ordinary Japanese writing. In everyday text, え appears in native words, grammatical material, and kana-only spellings, as in えき for “station” or えがお for “smiling face.” It is also used when kanji are not known, not needed, or deliberately avoided, such as in children’s books, language-learning materials, and phonetic annotations. The character has an important role in Japanese learning order because it is the fourth vowel in あいうえお. Its katakana counterpart is エ, which is more common in loanwords, scientific names, product styling, and other contexts where katakana is expected. A frequent practical distinction is between え and the small vowel ぇ: full-size え writes an independent mora, while small ぇ combines with a preceding kana for foreign-sound spellings such as ふぇ for “fe.”