katakana will likely be surrounded by other katakana
Usually size
力 カ
The first is “ちから,” the second is just か
口 ロ
The first is “くち,” the second is ろ
Everyone else gave you good tips. I think part of it is just getting used to it and learning from context/common sense, which will get easier the more you study and improve in Japanese.
There’s never really any situation where these could be confused
Nine times out of ten katakana will be part of a word, so preceded by and followed by more katakana, where as the kanji for mouth will be on its own not part of a katakana word.
例えば、僕の口が痒い！このロボットは怖い。
How do you tell sans-serif I and l apart? Context. Same for Japanese.
10 comments
katakana will likely be surrounded by other katakana
Usually size
力 カ
The first is “ちから,” the second is just か
口 ロ
The first is “くち,” the second is ろ
Everyone else gave you good tips. I think part of it is just getting used to it and learning from context/common sense, which will get easier the more you study and improve in Japanese.
There’s never really any situation where these could be confused
If you play Tales of Symphonia in Japanese, it is very easy. ロ looks like a D, and 口 looks like ロ https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/7/a/c/7ac375f89ae72bab592e8b1e3921a5c0f4246cfb.jpeg
Context makes it super clear.
A lot of times, 口 will be bigger than ロ. At least if both are the same font size and the same font. Otherwise it’s just dependant on the context…
There’s a joke about this in Barakamon! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJehB5mQSrY
Nine times out of ten katakana will be part of a word, so preceded by and followed by more katakana, where as the kanji for mouth will be on its own not part of a katakana word.
例えば、僕の口が痒い！このロボットは怖い。
How do you tell sans-serif I and l apart? Context. Same for Japanese.