How to learn katakana
How I did it: I pretty much used the same system I used to learn Hiragana: I used application called Mnemosyne, a Spaced Repetition System. It's a flashcard program, that shows cards your less
familiar with more often, and the easy ones less often. There are a
lot of decks already made, and one was for Katakana.
I added stroke order diagrams from Wikipedia to the basic cards.
I would do a couple of sessions a day, each taking five minutes or so.
It became like a game - if I didn't recognise a character, it wasn't
the end of the world, it would come back around soon enough.
Gradually, I found I was able to remember more and more.
I also started writing out the characters daily, in a standard Kana chart, but that was more to practice my handwriting.
Lessons & tips: A Spaced Repetition System. Mnemosyne and Anki are two free ones that (I think) work on most operating systems.
Do
some every day. Do your SRS reps. Don't fuss the ones you forget,
they'll come around again. Every so often, write out every character
you know, just to give yourself a sense of achievement.
Resources: Sites:
http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/
http://ichi2.net/anki/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
