I am doing Duolingo for Japanese to brush up in my Japanese. I came across a word that I don’t remember.
ダサい which means “hideous”
I know katakana is for foreign words, however, it’s written with the first two characters in katakana and the last character in hiragana. Why is that the case? I believe it’s the only word I’ve seen like that so far. The rest are all either purely katakana or purely hiragana.
3 comments
Because it’s an い adjective like 高い うるさい 美しい, etc
Dasai is a slang word meaning uncool, lame, not hip, cringe, etc.
The rule that hiragana is for native words and katakana is for foreign words is not a hard rule. Katakana can be used for all kinds of things, the same way capital letters or italicized letters can be used for all kinds of things in English. The fact it also happens to be used for foreign words is a relatively recent convention, but is not their only use.
You will find native speakers sprinkle katakana in all over the place, sometimes for emphasis, sometimes to represent a “made up” slang word (like this), and sometimes for no reason at all except to be quirky or different.
In this case, I think the い indicates that’s a い-adjective: [https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/i-adjective/](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/i-adjective/)
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It can also be written in hiragana, I believe.
* [https://maggiesensei.com/2010/10/18/ダサい-dasai-mini-lesson-132/](https://maggiesensei.com/2010/10/18/ダサい-dasai-mini-lesson-132/)