[Shaelyn]

I'll tell you what my professor told my class to remember the syllabary. it's a roundabout way of remembering, but it may help...if you don't know it already.

my professor said he went to a temple in japan once, and he saw these arrows there. so he asked what they were, and someone answered him "hamaya"
he said, hey, I've seen that before.

ha
ma
ya

that's an order of the syllabary.

so then he asked the class, so what do you shoot in a temple with arrows?
evil spirits...and then he asked for another word for that, so on and so forth, til we got this progression.
evil spirit -> demon -> devil -> satan

and he said, hey, I think I've seen that before. satana.

sa
ta
na

goes right before hamaya in the syllabary.

and he said, wait, and aka is red. a ka.

a
ka

sa
ta
na

ha
ma
ya

so if you can remember that you gotta shoot the red devil with an arrow, you might be able to remember it a little easier. then you just gotta remember that ra and wa come just below that.

anyway...as far as the katakana goes, I'd just go one row at a time. learn shi real well before you try to learn tsu...or vice versa...or you'll get confused. the only difference between the two is basically one's strokes are all vertical, and the other's are horizontal. ...and same for so and n.

flashcards definitely help too.

good luck!