Katakana（カタカナ）

I said there are three sets of writing in Japanese — Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji
The easiest of the three letters is probably Katakana because shape is simpler. It is more straight than Hiragana so it is easier to write for beginners.

Here is the Katakana chart:

There are 46 phonetic letters. From vowels up to R, it is combination of consonent + vowel. Traditionally, we write vertically from left to right. In this chart, we start from right top corner a, i, u, e, o (vowels) then go on to second column ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, then third column sa, si, su, se, so, …. until ra, ri ru re ro. The last column (left column) are wa（ワ）, wo（ヲ）, and n（ン）.

Now, if you would like to write something in Katakana, it is a little difficult in the beginning. First, you need to figure out how it is pronounced in Japanese.

For example, English names such as ”Tom”” would be pronounced in Japanese ”To mu””→ so it’s written”トム””

”Noah” is pronounced in Japanese ””No a” →”ノア”

For countries,
”America” would be ”Amerika” in Japanese so it will be ”アメリカ”
”England” is little tricky. We say ”Igirisu” and it is written イギリス
”Germamy” in Japanese is “Doitsu” (sounds like Deutch?) and written “ドイツ”

Now, can you guess what this is? カメラ

If you look at the chart, it is カ ka メ me ラ ra →kamera→camera

Here are some popular English names in Japanese

Please note some exception:

• In Japanese, we don’t have distinction between R and L sound. ex. Light and right are both written ライト (ra i to)
• If you want long sound, you put “－”　ex. sora (sky) is ソラ、solar is so-(with long sound)ra- ソーラー
• If you put clear sound +〃(upper right), it will change to dull sound　(k→ g, s→z, t→d,h→b)
  ex. ka +〃=gaカ→ガ、sa+〃= zaサ→ザ、 ta+〃= daタ→ダ、ha+〃= baハ→バ
• For h +゜(upper right)　becomes p
  ex. ha+゜=paハ→パ、hi+゜=piヒ→ピ hu+゜=puフ→プ、he+゜=peへ→ペ、ho+゜=poホ→ポ