Japanese is written using a combination of three writing systems. When many people think of Japanese, they think of the kanji characters that represent individual words or ideas. Originally borrowed from Chinese, kanji characters are vital to Japanese, but they are only a part of the written language. Also important are two syllabaries--hiragana and katakana--collectively referred to as kana.

A syllabary is basically an alphabet made up of syllable sounds. Every character in hiragana and katakana represents a single syllable sound. The pronunciation of these syllable sounds never changes, which means that once you know the sounds, you can read any word you see (well, as long as you can see the kana--kanji are another matter), unlike English words, which sometimes have confusing pronunciations.

To the point, what you have below are guides for both of the kana syllabaries. It's advised that you try to memorize the kana as soon as you can, so you can concentrate on the vocabulary, grammar, and kanji as you study.

One of the best ways I've found to study kana is by use of mnemonic images--pictures that call to mind the pronunciation of the character. Kana were originally derived from kanji, which are a form of pictoral language to begin with, so making new pictures out of the kana is pretty easy. Print out a copy of the kana charts below and see what pictures you can make out of the characters to help remind you of their sounds. Here's one example:

Okay, that's pretty cheesy. Here's another one:

Well, that one's cheesy too, but you get the idea.

Before attacking the kana, let's go over the sounds of Japanese. You can use English letters to write the sounds of Japanese, which means you can write Japanese using English letters--this style of writing is called romaji.

Just as in English, Japanese have an "alphabetical" style of order, and this is the order the kana are presented in. The first line of the kana contains five characters that represent the five vowels in Japanese. Their sounds are:
a - pronounced as the a in spa
i - pronounced as the ee in see (but shorter)
u - pronounced as the ou in Lou (but short and without rounding the lips)
e - pronounced as the e in egg
o - pronounced as the o in bone

The rest of the kana follow the same pronunciation--just add the appropriate consonant sound in front of the vowel. A few of the consonant sounds bear explanation, though, and these are:
shi - like she but with less rounding of the lips
chi - as in cheese but with no rounding of the lips
tsu - like the end of cats with an added "u"
ha, hi, hu, ho - the "h" in these requires a bit more air
fu - bring the lips close together without rounding them and force air out between them; some people write this as hu
ra, ri, ru, re, ro - the Japanese "r" is pronounced by tapping the tip of the tongue quickly and lightly against the gum behind the top teeth, a bit like the "t/d" in water and rider
ga, gi, gu, ge, go - a hard "g" as in gate
wo - the "w" is barely pronounced, if at all
n - the only sound that isn't truly syllabic in an English sense, this is often called the "syllabic nasal." Simply, it's a nasal sound with the length of a full syllable. Start to say the word "no" but don't say the "o." Hold it out a moment, and you have n! The actual sound really depends on the context. Before an m, p, or b, it's pronounced m; before s, sh, t, ts, ch, n, r, z, d, or j, it's pronounced n; before vowels, before k, y, w, g, or ng, or at the end of a word, it's pronounced ng.

When you see double consonants written in romaji, you should make a short pause between syallables. A doubled consonant sound like this is indicated in kana by use of a small tsu character.

A couple more notes about vowels. In conjunction with consonant sounds (that is to say, in all of the kana except the first five) the vowel sounds u and sometimes i are often shortened, sometimes so much so that they seem to disappear! That's why the words DESU and WATAKUSHI are actually pronounced DESS and WATAKSHI.

Also, double vowels indicate that a sound should be held out longer. This is important. An extra i can turn uncle (ojisan) into grandfather (ojiisan).

As you may have noticed, the sounds used by hiragana and katakana are exactly the same. Hiragana is used most often in conjunction with kanji to connect and finish words and phrases, to write some words fully, and for most furigana (small kana reading aids next to kanji). Katakana is used for loan words from other languages (including foreign names), sound words, and sometimes--particularly in manga--for emphasis.
The two charts below list the basic kana.

Hiragana

Katakana

That's almost all of the sounds--but not quite. There are two symbols used to modify the kana and their sounds. These are the (called dakuten) and (called handakuten).
The dakuten turns k, s, t, and h into g, z/j, d/j, and b, respectively.
The handakuten turns h into p.
Here's what those modified kana look like:

Hiragana

Katakana

Also, by writing a small ya, yu, or yo after symbols ending in the vowel i, you can create the following sounds:

Hiragana

Katakana

Now, you're ready to get cracking!

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