あ

In the bottom right part of this character you can see the letter “A”, which is how the character is spelled.

い

This character looks like the letter “i” twice, similar to the end of the word “Hawaii”. It sounds like the “ee” sound at the end of “Hawaii”.

う

Imagine an older person bending down to pick something up and groaning “oo!”. This character is spelled “u” and sounds like “oo”.

え

Imagine that this is an exotic bird with feathers on its head, sitting down looking to the left. The character is spelled “e” like the beginning of “exotic”.

お

Imagine an olive with a toothpick sticking up out of the top. This character is spelled “o” like the first letter in “olive”.