As any good student of Japanese can tell you, there are three sets of symbols generally used in writing: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Perhaps the most commonly seen of the three, katakana is used in a variety of situations in which the other two will not suffice.
Arguably the most common use of katakana is in the writing of 'loan' words, or foreign words (generally English) that are borrowed for use in the Japanese language. This includes things like most sports (バスケットボール、テニス、etc.) which find their roots in foreign countries, as well as things like brand-name products (コカコーラ、ペプシ, etc). Even some Japanese brand name products, such as ハイチュウ, are written in katakana with loan words, simply to add dramatic effect to the product's name and make it stand out more. Incidentally, this also makes the products more marketable in the United States (who wouldn't want to eat High Chew?), though this isn't necessarily the primary focus.
Another common usage of katakana is in onomatopoeia, where it takes on the role of accurately reproducing non-verbal sounds. Perhaps the most well-known instance of this is the famous ニャン, a representation of a cat's meow, made infamous amongst American internet-surfers by the 'nyan-cat' video. In any case, the use of katakana as onomatopoeia is not limited to animals' sounds (though it is certainly used to represent most of these), but also extends to various sound effects, as seen in most manga. From the ドーン often seen in the background of dramatic panels to the キーン of a slashing sword, hardly an action slide goes by without some word drawn in a stylized font of katakana. Even a dramatic ウアアアアア of a character crying is made more entertaining with the stylized figures in the background.
While use of katakana is most commonly found under these two classifications, there are a number of other uses that are simply too many to name. For instance, the name of one of my favorite anime, 刀語 (カタナガタリ) is written in katakana underneath its name in kanji, supposedly to clarify the pronunciation for kids watching the anime who would not otherwise know what the difficult characters meant. Because of this wide variation in uses, textbooks have trouble deciding on a concrete common ground with which to define what situations this set of characters is used.
Although I find the actual characters more difficult than hiragana, I prefer to see katakana when I'm reading something in Japanese, because even if I don't specifically know the word, it's generally much easier to guess than the average Japanese word!
I love ハイチュウ! I used to eat it very often when I was little. It's my favorite candy in the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree that katakana helps foreigners understand a word because "it's generally much easier to guess than the average Japanese word." Perhaps clarity is one of the purposes for Katakana...
Props for Katanagatari.
ReplyDeleteAs for the characters being harder than Hiragana, I think it's really just because we do pretty much all our reading and writing in Hiragana after all. More exposure to Hiragana = being able to actually read it at a fluent pace versus when reading Katana, when we need to generally struggle reading one character at a time out loud to figure out what the heck the word actually is supposed to be. At least, that's been my experience, especially when beginning to study.
マックス
(Hisae Matsui posted this for Max Behar (4nensee))
I must agree with chibicello that katakana might be used for clarification purposes. It certainly does get the meaning of the word across much easier than a word written in hiragana. For example, non-English foreign words written in katakana are easier to remember than words written in hiragana despite having no understanding of either word prior to the encounter. As for the onomatopoeia aspect of katakana, I believe that it gives it additional emphasis by providing some visual character to the sound effect.
ReplyDeleteWow! I'm surprised so many people like katakana in regard to English equivalents. Personally, I dislike katakana because it never sounds quite right. In other words, there are times when you are trying to figure out the equivalent in English and it takes the Japanese teacher to say it in English before that "OHHHHHHHHH" moment of understanding happens. Still, I think they are visually pleasing in signs and LOVE when animated onomatopoeia fly or ~wiggle~ across the screen on Japanese TV shows :D
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