Learning the Japanese Language: Katakana

There are three main alphabets in Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In this article you will find information on the usage of katakana, its similarity to hiragana, and common writing mistakes to avoid.

First, katakana is used for the "Japanization" of foreign words. Since Japanese doesn't have the range of sounds in their language found in other languages, it has to use its existing sounds to express foreign words. For example, since most Japanese people who haven't been exposed to English can't pronounce the L-sound, they replace the "L" with an "R." Same thing for "V," which is replaced with a "B" sound. Although it can be confusing at times, it's important to know this difference. If you ever wrote a letter to a Japanese person, you'd have to know how they'd transcribe the word in katakana for them to understand what you're talking about.

Katakana borrows many, many foreign words. An easy example of a word that would be written in katakana is 'paati,' which represents the word 'party' in English. A few other examples are 'konpyutaa', for computer; 'teiburu', for table; and 'futtoboru' for football. In fact, Japanese even borrows English words it can already express in Japanese. A good example of this would be the English word love, which can be expressed in katakana as 'rabu' but is already the word 'ai' in Japanese. However, foreign words can get tricky for English learners if the word isn't borrowed from English. 'Arubaito,' for example, means part-time job in Japanese, and is borrowed from a german word. Even words that aren't from foreign languages can be tricky. 'Terebi' stands for television, 'pokeberu' stands for pager (literally, pocket bell), and 'eakon' stands for air conditioner, for example. With katakana you can write any and all English words, even if the word isn't set in stone in the Japanese language. If the person who is reading your katakana has a working understanding of English, they may be able to figure out what you are trying to say.