や

Think about the head of a yak, with the round right side being the nose and the two points on the left being the horns. This character is spelled “ya” like the first two letters of “yak”, and sounds like “yah”.

ゆ

Imagine this character is a unique fish swimming towards the right. It’s spelled “yu” and sounds like the “u” in “unique”.

よ

This character looks like the word “yo” written from top to bottom. It’s spelled and sounds like “yo”.