Japanese Writing System Part 2: Katakana

On to the next lesson... Katakana...

What is Katakana?
Like hiragana, katakana is a Japanese syllabery and another component of the Japanese writing system. It also has 46 basic characters and is built in the same way as hiragana. However, the individual characters are different. Compared to hiragana, katakana characters are more angular and geometrical. They are the simplest of Japanese scripts.

Usage
Katakana is mainly used for foriegn words and names. For example, "television" is written terebi (テレビ). Katakana are also used for onomatopoeia (words used to represent sounds). Some examples include pinpon (ピンポン) and the "ding-dong" sound of a doorbell. Words imitating a sound and scientific terms are also usually written in katakana.

Katakana chart
Here are the basic katakana characters and their corresponding romanizations. As with hiragana, shi (シ), chi (チ), tsu (ツ) and fu (フ) are irregular to the pattern of pronounciation in katakana. Shi (シ) and tsu (ツ) are easily confused with each other, the small difference is the two strokes in the upper left corner in different angles.

Dakuten (濁点) and handakuten (半濁点) markers
Like with hiragana, you can modify katakana characters with a dakuten marker (゛) or a handakuten marker (゜) as seen below:

• dakuten marker ゛ - changes k to h, s to z, t to d, and h to b
• handakuten marker ゜ - changes h to p

Yōon modifiers (拗音)
Youon katakana follows the same pattern as with youon hiragana.


Double consonants
Double consonants are written the same way as hiragana, but with a small ッ (tsu) in katakana instead. Taking the examples from hiragana to demonstrate it in use:

カッタ - katta
ハッパ　- happa

Additional resources
So now I have to memorize these. Katakana symbols are harder to memorize because they aren't used very often. Here are some resources that might help...

• Real Kana is a very simple yet effective tool for learning hiragana and katakana symbols.

• I found another set of hiragana and katakana mnemonics.

• Typing katakana symbols isn't easy without a Japanese keyboard or specialized software. With the newbie-friendly "copyable" katakana symbols from Japanese in 20 Weeks, you can just copy and paste the characters you need. This isn't the best solution, but it'll do if you're just starting to learn katakana.

Sources
Wikipedia
Japanese in 20 Weeks