Words that are meant to be spelled with kanji or hiragana being spelled with katakana

4 comments

1. Let’s learn with an example!

   For educational purposes only, here is a page of book I’m currently reading:

   https://imgur.com/a/lT43jhz

   Notice the katakana.

   You see the word タネ is using katakana. That’s the Japanese word for “pit”, like the pit of a fruit. As you can see by the picture, the little beardy guy is describing how spiky these pits are. That word can just use kanji or hiragana, but he’s really emphasizing it because it’s really important. If you eat that spiky pit, you are gonna have a bad time.

   Another use on that same page is the name of the fruit, “stardust” スターダスト is in katakana. Of course there is a native word for stardust 星屑 but スターダスト probably sounds more exotic or foreign and special.

   Another use (not on this page!) is going to be character names. Like in this book, メタナイト (Metaknight) is a character in this book, which is a book about Kirby (Kirby is a Nintendo character if you don’t know, Metaknight is one of his friends/rivals). His name isn’t a Japanese or Chinese name so it’s katakana.

2. Here goes a short article talking about potential use cases for Katakana.

   https://www.sakuramani.com/when-to-use-katakana/

   Personally I’ve seen it used a fair amount in advertising.

3. You know the word 馬鹿 right? It’s often written as ばか but it’s also written as バカ

   This is like emphasis, so “Stupid” vs “***Stupid***”

4. I think using katakana where another script is usually used draws attention to the phonetic side of the words as opposed to the semantic side. The secondary effects can be emphasis, or giving an impression of being spoken loudly, or de-familiarizing the word, etc.

   Some words have multiple ways to write, such as たばこ、タバコ, 煙草. たこ、蛸、タコ