"Writing Japanese Katakana: An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook is a good book for those who wish to learn Japanese. When studying Japanese, you should start by learning to read and write hiragana, and then, you should study katakana next. Not only will it help you to be able to read signs, menus, etc in Japan, but knowing and using katakana will help you to pronounce foreign words and onomatopoeia in the way that Japanese people understand them." --Tokyo Five blog