Katakana words in Japanese always mess me up. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Japanese language, there are three different systems to write. Japanese is a phonetic language meaning that each character represents a distinct phonetic syllable. In contrast, English like most (or all?) European language, a single letter doesn't represent a phonetic syllable but a sound. Example: phone has five letters but doesn't have five syllables... instead it has one. Two of the three writing systems, Hiragana and Katakana use this phonetic concept. The third writing system, Kanji uses Chinese characters... often simplified. Kanji doesn't use the phonetic syllable concept but instead goes according to meaning. That is, a single Kanji character holds a certain meaning, and thus can hold many syllables within it.
Anyway, going back to the Hiragana and Katakana... Hiragana characters are used for words with Japanese origins while Katakana words often have foreign origins. For example... "conpyuta" means computer. It doesn't look very similar... but when you say it, you can hear the similarities. But some katakana words just get me scratching my head. Here's a list of some of the ones that really mess me up (the pronunciation --> the probable origin --> the meaning in English):
stobu --> stove --> heater
conro --> ??? (sounds like cornrows as in the hair style) --> stove
smato --> smart --> skinny
manshion --> mansion --> condominium