Learn Japanese

Both Hiragana & Katakana represent sounds; they both have 46 main alphabet letters/characters called Gojūon and based on the main 46 characters there are 20 letters called dakuon, 5 letters called han-dakuon, and 36 letters called yōon for additional sounds. Only difference between them is letters/symbols, they sound exactly same. Hiragana is most basic and primarily used to represent Japanese words, while katakana, on the other hand, represents foreign words. Katakana alerts the reader that the word is foreign/imported from another language. Example: コンピューター(Konpyūtā) means computer or チーズ(Chizu) means cheese.

Orignally Japanese was written vertically (tategaki) but with the introduction of mathematical formulas, western materials and internet, things gradually started changing. Nowadays, Textbooks about classical literature or Some newspapers and novels are still written vertically and most of the other non-classical books are written horizontally (yokogaki).

If Japanese is wriiten horizontally you have to read it from top to bottom and right to left; and if Japanese is written horizontally you have to read it from left to right and top to bottom.

Japanese text transliterated (not translate) into Roman/Latin alphabets is called Japanese Romanization or in short Romaji/Rōmaji. It helps non-japanese person to read Japanese. For Example: すし gets transliterated to sushi, みず gets transliterated to mizu (water).

Before talking about what Gojuon, Dakuon, Han-Dakuon and Yoon is; Let's first talk about what Japanese letter chart consist of ? There are 5 vowels (a, i, u, e, o) and 14 constants (k, s, t, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, p, n).

Dakuon: k, s, t, h, m, y, r, w and n are main constants and makes up the gokuon letter chart. k, s, t and h symbols/letters can be changes by placing two small strokes (dakuten) in top-right corner of their symbols to make sounds of g, z, d and b respectively. Pronunciation of じ (shi altered to zi; pronunced as ji) and ぢ(chi altered to zi; pronunced as ji), ず (su altered to zu) and づ (tsu altered to du; pronunced as zu) are the same.

Han-Dakuon: Constant h is special if you place a small circle (han-dakuten) instead of two small strokes in top-right corner of h symbols; it makes sound of constant p instead of b or h. Example: ぱ

Yoon: Characters which ends with i like ki, shi, chi, ji with their pronounciation altered by adding smaller や (ya), ゆ (yu), よ(yo) letters next to them. For example き (ki) + よ(yo) = きょ(kyo)