Used under a Creative Commons licence.
| sci.lang.japan FAQ / 1. Writing / 1.1. Hiragana and katakana | Search: |
|
|
|
| Katakana signs |
|---|
|
Photo credit: Ciro Cattuto
Used under a Creative Commons licence. |
In modern Japanese, katakana is most often used for transcription of words from foreign languages. For example, "television" is written terebi (テレビ). Similarly, katakana is usually used for foreign names. For example America is written Amerika (アメリカ) and John is written Jōn (ジョーン). See also 4. Words from other languages and 5. Japanese and English.
| Turn English into katakana: |
Katakana are also used for onomatopoeia, letters used to represent sounds. For example hii (ヒー), meaning "sigh" is usually written in katakana. See also 15.3. What noises do animals make?
The names of animal and plant species and minerals are also commonly written in katakana. See 1.3.2. How are animal and plant names written in Japanese?.
Katakana are also often used for Japanese company names. For example Suzuki is スズキ,and Mitsubishi is ミツビシ. Katakana are also used for emphasis, especially on signs, advertisements, and hoardings. For example, ゴミ "gomi" (rubbish) or メガネ "megane" (glasses).
Until World War 2, official documents used a mix of katakana and kanji in the same way that hiragana and kanji are mixed in modern Japanese texts, that is, katakana were used for okurigana (see 1.1.8. What is okurigana?) and particles (see 2.3. Particles (助詞)) such as wa or wo.
Telegrams are written in katakana, and before the introduction of multibyte characters in computer systems in the 1980s, computer output was entirely in katakana. The Japanese banking system still requires account names to be in katakana. See 14.3. What is half-width katakana?
Although words borrowed from ancient Chinese are usually written in kanji, loanwords from modern Chinese which are borrowed directly rather than using the Sino-Japanese readings, are often written in katakana. For example,
| Katakana | Kanji | Rōmaji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| マージャン | 麻雀 | mājan | mahjong |
| ウーロン | 烏龍茶 | ūroncha | oolong tea |
| チャーハン | 炒飯 | chāhan | fried rice |
| チャーシュー | 叉焼 | chāshū | roast pork |
| シューマイ | 焼売 | shūmai | a kind of dim sum |
| ラーメン | 拉麺 | rāmen | Chinese-style noodles |
Katakana are sometimes used instead of hiragana as furigana (see 1.3.3. What is furigana?).
Katakana are also sometimes used to indicate words being spoken in a foreign accent or "robotic" speech. For example, in a manga, the speech of a foreign character or a robot may be represented by コンニチ ワ ("konnichiwa") instead of the more usual hiragana こんにちは ("konnichi wa").
Katakana are also used to indicate the on'yomi readings of a kanji in a kanji dictionary. See 1.2.11. How is a kanji dictionary used?
Some personal names are written in katakana, especially female ones. This was more common in the past, hence elderly women often have katakana names.
Words with uncommon kanji are sometimes partly written in katakana. For example, in the word "dermatologist", hifuka (皮膚科), the second kanji, 膚, is quite unusual, and thus the word is commonly written as 皮フ科, with the second character in katakana only.
Copyright © 1994-2010 Ben Bullock
If you have questions, corrections, or comments, please contact Ben Bullock or use the discussion forum / Privacy