As an important part of Japanese, Katakana form a lot of expressions in Japanese, some of which are commonly used in daily life. This post gathers some examples of Katakana usage. It is expected that by knowing more about Katakana, the last piece of puzzle to learn Japanese can be completed. Foreign Words Similar to words we have learned, e.g., coffee (コーヒー), pizza (ピザ), hamburger (ハンバーガー), Katakana are widely used in words originated from foreign languages. (Starbucks menu in Japanese. Source: https://starbmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Starbucks-Japan-menu.png) It is easy to quickly find some examples from this image: espresso (エスプレッソ), tea (ティー), fresh juice (フレッシュジュース). It is noted that some of these Katakana words have Japanese expressions that already exists, but Katakana forms are still taken. For example, tea can be represented as お茶(ちゃ) as well. There are multiple reasons for it. Luckily enough, Katakana forms come quite straightforward. Basically, just slightly modify the...
It is interesting how Japanese uses three alphabets. I wonder especially how these alphabets originally came about, as it seems somewhat unnatural, at least in my western perspective, to invent new characters for different purposes of the same sounds. That's a good question, and it goes back to early history of Japanese (and Japan). Ancient Japanese only communicated with listening and speaking. They didn't have anything for reading or writing. Things started to change in around the 5th century, when Chinese (especially Chinese writing system) was widely introduced to Japan. So Japanese basically had Kanji (literally Chinese characters) first. In this way, Chinese has been leaving deep influence to Japanese since that time. In fact, Sino-Japanese is often considered more formal or literary, just as latinate words in English often mark a higher register. (Just to notice: Japanese is still an independent language from Chinese. There is no way for anyone to master Japanese with me...
げつようびからきんようびまで、いろいろなことをしていたみたいですね。どれがいちばんたのしかったですか?
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