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| 168707 |
Looking for help with Japanese.
I am confused on what the differences between Hiragana and Katakana. It seems they use different characters to say the same thing. Is this correct? help me understand writen Japanese.
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Language pair: English; Japanese
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| 168844 |
Re:Looking for help with Japanese.
Both Hiragana and Katakana are phonogram.
1) Katakana is used for words of foreign origin.
e.g.
¥¢¥á¥ê¥«¡¡America (name of place)
¥ª¥Ð¥Þ¡¡Obama (person's name <non japanese>)
2) Katakana is also used for onomatopoeia.
e.g.
¥Ò¥å¡¼¡¡hyuuuu (=whizz)
¥É¡¼¥ó¡¡doooon (= voom)
3) We use either one to describe animals and plants.
(we use Kanji,too.)
¤Ò¤Þ¤ï¤ê ¥Ò¥Þ¥ï¥ê¡¡¸þÆü°ª (= sunflowers)
¤Í¤³¡¡¥Í¥³¡¡Ç¡¡(= cats)
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Language pair: English; Japanese
This is a reply to message # 168707
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| 168845 |
Re:Looking for help with Japanese.
Both Hiragana and Katakana are phonogram.
1) Katakana is used for words of foreign origin.
e.g.
¥¢¥á¥ê¥«¡¡America (name of place)
¥ª¥Ð¥Þ¡¡Obama (person's name <non japanese>)
2) Katakana is also used for onomatopoeia.
e.g.
¥Ò¥å¡¼¡¡hyuuuu (=whizz)
¥É¡¼¥ó¡¡doooon (= voom)
3) We use either one to describe animals and plants.
(we use Kanji,too.)
¤Ò¤Þ¤ï¤ê ¥Ò¥Þ¥ï¥ê¡¡¸þÆü°ª (= sunflowers)
¤Í¤³¡¡¥Í¥³¡¡Ç¡¡(= cats)
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Language pair: English; Japanese
This is a reply to message # 168707
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| 168911 |
Re:Looking for help with Japanese.
Yes, we use katakana for loanwords from foreign languages (mainly from English).
But we also use them to describe unfamiliar things (even though they are Japanese in origin) or onomatopoeia.
On the other hand, hiragana is used for only Japanese words or things we know well.
Kanji is originally Chinese (this is why it is called 'Chinese characters'), but Japanese invented hiragana (and later katakana) from Kanji.
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Language pair: English; Japanese
This is a reply to message # 168707
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