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What is katakana?

Katakana is the second Japanese syllabary. It has the same sounds as hiragana, character for character, but its shapes are straighter and more angular, so か is カ and さ is サ.

Its main job is words from other languages, such as コーヒー (kōhī, coffee) and テレビ (terebi, television). Foreign names and many sound effects in manga are written in katakana too.

Writers also use it for emphasis, much like italics in English.

If you already know hiragana, you know every katakana sound. What is new is the shapes, the long-vowel mark ー and a few combinations made for foreign sounds.