Katakana is used for imported words and onomatopoeic words. Foreign names are
often translated with katakana. There are 46 katakana to learn. In addition to the 46 katakana there are some katakana with different pronunciation. Those katakana have a dot or two small strokes added to them like,
(ha )
(ba)
(pa).
 
 
 

Both Hiragana and katakana are from the beginning Chinese characters. Lok at "ka" in the table:
(). katakana "jia "
() Chinese equivalence.  Pronunciation in Chinese is "a ".
( ) katakana "i"
( ) Chinese equivalence.  Pronunciation in Chinese is "yi ".

It is easy to see the resemblance.

Japanese characters are ordinarily written vertically from top to bottom, from right to left.

n	w	r	y	m	h	n	t	s	k
											a
											i
											u
											e
											o

This is an additional table that contains katakana with voiced sound marks and semi-voiced sound marks, note that the basic structure are the same as abow.
 

p	b	d	z	g
					a
					i
					u
					e
					o

Often this table is displayed in another form, to make it easier to study it for us westerners: ( first row is pronounced "a","i","u","e" and "o". Second row: "ka", "ki", "ku", "ke" and "ko" and so on.
 

	A	I	U	E	O
K
G
S
Z
T
D
N
H
B
P
M
Y
R
W
N