A complete selection of Kana study aids to help you master the Katakana and Hiragana can be found in the Kana Bookstore.
Eleanor Harz Jorden and Hamako Ito Chaplin recommend reading the first 10 chapters of Beginning JapanesePart 1 & Part 2 as it is coordinated with Reading Japanese. There is also an Audio Cassette you can buy which comes with the book.
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For the representation of sounds and combinations of sounds that occur only in the more innovative Japanese pronunciation of recent loan words, special conventions for the use of katakana have been adopted.
The combinations テュ、デュ、フュ exemplify the same principle that was described in the preceding section, i.e., the initial symbols retain their consonantal value but lose their vocalic value, and the combinations represent unit syllables. They will be represented in our romanization as t(e)yu, d(e)yu and h(u)yu respectively.
In the less innovative variety of Japanese, チュ tyu, ジュ zyu, and ヒュ hyu occur instead.
"...one-fourth of all the characters used in modern Japanese occur in three-fourths of all the most frequently occurring words. This means that by concentrating on learning approximately 500 select characters, the student is assured of being able to read 75% of all the high-frequency words he will encounter in modern literature." - The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power.
