Basic unvoiced katakana
These are the 46 basic katakana syllables. Move your mouse over them to see their romaji equivalent. Starting top left and reading down the table, you'll notice that the pattern seems pretty regular: five basic vowel sounds (a, i, u, e, o) on their own, and then with a series of consonants in front of them (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko; sa, shi, su, se, so, etc), just the same as the hiragana.

As with the hiragana, there are a few irregularities. Luckily for those of you that have already learnt the hiragana, they are the same exceptions - regular irregularities, if you like.

Notice that where you might expect a si, we get a shi instead. The Japanese syllable in question just happens to sound more like a shi than a si, so that's how it's normally romanized.

The same is true for ti, tu and hu, which are actually pronounced (and hence romanized) more like chi, tsu and fu.

You'll also notice that there seem to be some gaps. There's nothing where you'd expect yi or ye to be, and they seem to have missed out wi, wu and we altogether. The sounds just don't really exist in Japanese, so don't worry about it unduly. They *do* exist in foreign words, of course, but I'll show you how we get around that later on.