Katakana

Katakana has the same 46 sounds as hiragana with a different, more angular stroke, and it is reserved for what comes from outside: パン (bread, from Portuguese), コーヒー (coffee), foreign names and onomatopoeia. The long bar ー stretches the vowel and only exists here: ビール is “bīru”, beer, while ビル without the bar is a building. Watch the look-alikes: シ (shi) and ツ (tsu) differ in stroke direction, ン (n) and ソ (so) in angle. Reading katakana slowly is normal even after years, because the words it hides are usually distorted English: アルバイト means “part-time job”, from German Arbeit.