Comment by tjallingt

Not a Japanese reader so i can't fill you in on what exactly the characters mean but they are characters from the Japanese katakana script. Katakana are generally used for loanwords and each character represents a sound:

ツ - tsu

シ - shi

ソ - so

ン - n

The reason these are difficult to learn is because the tiny differences in stroke angles (especially when handwritten) make it easy to confuse them.