In the Japanese language, the gojūon is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are displayed. Each kana, which may be a hiragana or katakana character, corresponds to one sound in Japanese. As depicted at the right using hiragana characters, the sequence begins with あ , い , う , え , お , then continues with か , き , く , け , こ , and so on and so forth for a total of ten rows of five columns.