A standard deck consists of 45 unique cards. Each card has a "value" and a "suit". There are 5 different suits (rows in the table below), and 9 different values (columns in the table below).
The suits have names: the top row are the "spades", the second row are the "hearts", the third row are the "clubs" the fourth row are the "diamonds" and the bottom row are the "stars".
Note that each row consists of 9 cards, and all of the rows pretty much look the same (other than being distinct suits). The values of the cards in each row (from left to right) are: Ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. The Ace is a special card that is sometimes considered "1" and sometimes considered "10". This will be discussed more in relation to straights on the hands page
Most people refer to a particular card by name, specifying the value first, then the suit. For example, I would call the card below the "Nine of Diamonds":
The card below would be called the "Four of Clubs":