Blog post #8: Katakana

こんにちは！

Katakana is used in Japanese for many types of words.

Katakana is often used for brands and products. For example, in this advertisement, we can see words like コカ・コーラ and クリア.  Japanese also often mixes katakana with native words, especially in marketing. For example, words like ラーメン and チキン are used on snacks.

    

         

Katakana is also used for everyday loanwords. 

For example, オレンジジュース (orange juice) is a common word used in daily life. 

While many katakana words come from English, they can come from other languages too. For example, Portuguese gave Japanese パン (bread), German gave アルバイト (from “arbeit”, meaning part-time job), and French gave コンクール (from “concours”, meaning competition).

Katakana is also used for onomatopoeia, especially in manga. 

For example, ドーン represents a loud sound like “boom”. Katakana looks sharper than hiragana and makes these sounds more dynamic and expressive.