Katakana is like hiragana in that every basic character has the exact same sound as its name. However, since there are more sounds in foreign words than in Japanese, katakana has more characters and combinations than hiragana does. One important character that is only used in katakana is the chouon.

chouon: This katakana character does not have its own pronunciation. It is used to extend the vowel sound that comes before it. In hiragana, if you wanted to extend the a sound in a word, you would write an additional a character. In katakana, this is done using the chouon instead. The chouon can be used to extend any vowel sound.

The spelling of katakana words of foreign origins is supposed to be based on pronunciation. The sounds are generally matched to words as most Japanese hear them. Unfortunately, there are some limitations. Aside from the character n, every character in katakana is made of a vowel attached to a consonant. This means that where there should be two consonants next to one another in a foriegn word, there is a vowel between them in the Japanese version of the word. Also, since Japanese has only five vowel sounds, and a limited number of consonants, substitutions are often made with the "closest" sound, sometimes making the words sound very little like the original. There is also the problem that some katakana words have been based on the spelling of the word instead of the pronunciation.

Please note, also, that NOT all words in katakana come from English. In recent times, the majority of imported words in Japanese come from English, however, this was not always the case. There are many words that have been imported from Portuguese, Dutch, or German. There are, for example, two words for "glass" in Japanese. One is garasu and the other is gurasu. Garasu comes from Dutch, and means only glass the substance. Gurasu comes from English and means only 'a cup made of glass.'

Remember that katakana words are not actually the words that they are based on. Try not to be tempted to use their original pronunciation as a substitute. Often, the original word sounds so different from the Japanese version that it is completely unrecognizable to Japanese ears.

Some general rules for rendering English words into katakana:

In words that contain an r sound after a vowel, the katakana word usually just extends the vowel sound.
Ex: mark -> ma-ku マーク (The - in these examples represents the chouon, above.)
Ex: fork -> fo-ku フォーク

The v sound is generally replaced by the b sound.
Ex: video -> bideo ビデオ

D and t, when they do not have a vowel after them, are usually replaced with do and to, respectively.
Ex: dress -> doresu ドレス
Ex: contest -> kontesuto コンテスト

The "j" sound, when it doesn't have a vowel after it, is usually replaced with ji.
Ex: orange -> orenji オレンジ

The other single consonant sounds, when they do not have a vowel after them, are usually replaced with the appropriate consonant followed by u. (Some notable exceptions to this are the words cake and steak, which turn into ke-ki and sute-ki.)
Ex: class -> kurasu クラス
Ex: club -> kurabu クラブ
Ex: home -> ho-mu ホーム

L and r are both replaced with characters from the ra ri ru re ro line of the katakana table.
Ex: milk -> miruku ミルク
Ex: room -> ru-mu ルーム

The "see" sound is generally replaced with shi. (The newer combination of a se or su character followed by a half-sized u is used in some words.)
Ex: sink -> shinku シンク

The tu sound is generally replaced with chu. (The newer combination of the to character followed by a half-sized u is used in some words.)
Ex: tube -> chu-bu チューブ

The soft "th" sound is replaced with characters from the sa shi su se so row of the katakana table.
Ex: thank you -> sankyu- サンキュー
Ex: bath -> basu バス

The hard "th" sound is replaced with characters from the za ji zu ze zo row of the katakana table.
Ex: weather -> ueza- ウエザー

Since the only w sound in Japanese is wa, all other w sounds are generally replaced with u.
Ex: wine -> wain ワイン
Ex: waiter -> ue-ta- ウエーター
Ex: whisky -> uisuki- ウイスキー

Words that have a short vowel followed by a consonant will often double the consonant. (This is not the case when the consonant is n.)
Ex: truck -> torakku トラック
Ex: bed -> beddo ベッド
Ex: pet -> petto ペット
Ex: pen -> pen ペン

The "y" sound, except when followed by a, o, or u, is usually replaced with i.
Ex: you -> yu- ユー
Ex: year -> iya- イヤー

In order to make foreign words sound more like their originals, additional character combinations have been introduced. These new combinations represent fa, fi, fe, fo, si, ti, tu, di, du, wi, we, wo, va, vi, vu, ve, vo, tsa, tsi, tse, tso, che, she, and je. This means that words that came into the language earlier will sometimes follow different spelling rules than words that have been introduced more recently. Unfortunately, most Japanese people do not actually pronounce some of the new characters as they are intended to be used (especially the characters with v and w). So, the spelling has become more complicated without making the pronunciation much better. Some words even have more than one acceptable spelling now.

Ex: fork -> ho-ku ホーク　(old ho spelling)
Ex: fork -> fo-ku フォーク　(new fo spelling)

Ex: vendor -> benda- ベンダー　(old be spelling)
Ex: vendor -> venda- ヴェンダー　(new ve spelling, still usually pronounced as be)

Now that we've gotten all that tedious explanation out of the way, let's get on to actually writing the characters.

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