Introduction: Although I'm not fluent, I know a lot of the basics in reading and writing in Japanese. Even though we already have some good sites for learning all of these things, it can sometimes be too confusing to navigate through the other websites. So here are a few things to learn in Japanese, straight from someone who is also learning the language! (Yes I copied and pasted this from Learn Hiragana ^___^)

Unless you already know Hiragana, I suggest you learn Hiragana first on this thread before continuing. Katakana is built the same way as Hiragana, except they are used primarily for foreign "loan-words". For example, "Aisu Kuriimu" is "Ice Cream". Theoretically, you can read and write in just Hiragana, but it would be too hard and confusing that way. In Katakana, although we'd be learning a whole new set, once you practice it enough, you'll understand better why it is much easier to read and write in Japanese when used alongside Hiragana and Kanji. I don't know how else to explain it lol

Here is the Katakana chart. Like Hiragana, it is built with an A I U E O pattern.

Table courtesy of Tokyowithkids.com

Also like Hiragana, the Japanese have other sounds that uses the same characters as the first chart except for the dakuten and handakuten marks.

Table courtesy of Tokyowithkids.com

Now for stroke order. Just go here: http://www2.hawaii.edu/%7essatoru/other/...ana_image/. It's made like the Hiragana stroke order of the Hiragana lesson, so you should be comfortable with it already :)

For more information on Katakana, visit Learn Japanese Language provided by Shin Hye

Sources: Yookoso! An invitation to Contemporary Japanese by Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku

This post was last modified: 01-09-2008 02:15 PM by Rondillo.

its hard to write in japanese, lot of strokes unlike in korean. but thanks for the info Ron

katakana has ALWAYS been my weakspot in my begginers japanese ... (i'm not including kanji) thanx ^_^

this is very useful, thnx a lot, rondillo ^-^

i still confuse

wow, it's very confusing!!! hahah some are okay but looking at all the words is making me dizzy....i should just ask my Japanese co-worker, she's always happy to help out

woooow a lot of letters to remember

hopfully i'll try to write them down and get some experiance with katakana

thanks a lot for the helpfull info.

but even if learned this,i still dont noe japanese words,like i dont know what is flower in japanese ect. please help ><

Thanks for the information

still japanese still has aeiou so it counts as an alphabet in chinese only mandarin has an alphabet ithink....but cantonese doesnt......