Katakana study methods.

Emoni · 16 Jan 2005

Right now I'm entirely my fourth semester of College Japanese... yet for some reason I still hesitate my reading and speech when I run into Katakana! I know, sad, huh? At this level I should have it down.

Maybe it just because I don't use it nearly as much as katakana, or maybe it's because I learned everything as Hiragana FIRST. I just can't quite remember it well. Now I know all the kana, but sometimes I'll forget Ne or Mu out of the blue when I hit a word in katakana.

Is there anyone else who has had this problem and used a study method of theirs to help out? I mean beyond just flash cards, and writing them over and over. It doesn't quite seem to be working to well. Right now I think I'll practice writing ALL in Katakana with kanji for a bit, but does anyone else know any other ways that help ingrain it in your memory?

lexico · 16 Jan 2005

I've never gone beyond my first semester of Japanese, however,...

one of my classmates in Greek laminated the whole paradigm and glued it onto the wall of her shower.
Quite creative, wasn't she?
It just hit me. If you can make giant printouts of カタカナ words, like banner size, and post them onto your ceiling over you bed, it might help you dream in カタカナ.

Emoni · 16 Jan 2005

... but I'd have to try to go to sleep with my eyes open though! That would be difficult.

Mike Cash · 16 Jan 2005

Speaking from personal experience: Don't worry about it.

I learned katakana, but I never sat down and tried to do it. I picked them up from seeing them around town in Japan.

For example:

1.A billboard with a picture of a guy swinging a golf club
2. Spot three things I know must be katakana on the billboard
3. Spot two dots, the function of which I recognize from hiragana
4. Knowledge that katakana often is used for loan words
5. Knowledge that golf is "gorufu"; a loan word

Put them all together and it is easy to see that the three katakana must be ゴ and ル and フ, read "go" and "ru" and "fu".

Picking them up that way accounts for about 95% of all the active effort I ever put into picking up katakana.

Having to read/write katakana is sort of like having to recall junior high algebra. In later years you come to realize that it crops up so infrequently in everyday life that it really wasn't worth too much worry back in the days when you were learning it. (Worth learning, yes. Worth worrying about, no).

Emoni · 16 Jan 2005

Thanks Mike. I do KNOW katakana to a decent extent and "almost" always figure out what the loan word is or what is being said (sometimes there are a few that are just REALLY out there though...). I just always got frustrated because I hestated so often when I hit a katakana word, but was never sure why.

I'll just keep focusing on the rest, such as new kanji and grammar and let the katakana gain on it's own.

Mike Cash · 16 Jan 2005

I've had times I couldn't recall how to write ケ....until I realized I wrote it on a regular basis every time I wrote MY OWN NAME. Talk about feeling stupid!

Even worse, I had to actually write my name before I could recall how to write the ケ.

Glenn · 16 Jan 2005

Katakana always slows me down, too. I believe that it's mostly because of it's infrequent use in comparison with hiragana and kanji. Sometimes, though, I'll get stuck on a katakana word that I haven't come across before for a while trying to figure out what English word it is, having to play with the accent a bit. It's always fun to find out that it's not an English word (e.g. zubon, pan).

Mike Cash · 16 Jan 2005

Sometimes the opposite happens, too.

I had a hell of a time figuring out what イートイン meant on a sign in a bakery.

nemesae · 17 Jan 2005

I'm not that fluent with katakana either, and I mostly learn to recognise only words I come across often in interview translations, such as バンド and シングル. But I still have trouble at separating shi and tsu, and so and n sometimes. I think katakana is best learned just reading it a lot or seeing it a lot in every day life.

Elizabeth · 17 Jan 2005

nemesae said:
I'm not that fluent with katakana either, and I mostly learn to recognise only words I come across often in interview translations, such as バンド and シングル. But I still have trouble at separating shi and tsu, and so and n sometimes. I think katakana is best learned just reading it a lot or seeing it a lot in every day life

If you're at all interested in learning to read a Japanese newspaper, that would be a highly logical starting place. There are very few stories that don't carry at least one foreign word or phrase, usually with a great deal of context, and you get to practice kanji retention at the same time ! Loads more fun than writing everything out I'd say....

stephenmunday · 17 Jan 2005

How about coming at the problem from the opposite direction?

Youo say that you have difficulty figuring out what loan word the katakana is probably referring to, so to get into the swing of how the Japanese transcribe, why not try writing English words into katakana? By putting yourself in their shoes, you might find it easier when you have to go from katakana back to "English".

The most effective way for me was to listen to my students speaking "English" when I worked in a high school here. The only way I could figure out what most of them were saying was to presuppose that they were using Japanese syllables to create the "English" words and then work my way back to the real English from that. This got me used to recognizing how Japanese transcribe English sounds, which was invaluable when it came to trying to figure out gairaigo in Japanese.

nemesae · 17 Jan 2005

Elizabeth said:
If you're at all interested in learning to read a Japanese newspaper, that would be a highly logical starting place. There are very few stories that don't carry at least one foreign word or phrase, usually with a great deal of context, and you get to practice kanji retention at the same time ! Loads more fun than writing everything out I'd say....

I'm not writing out much, just those symbols I don't know and at lyrics translations. But the newspaper would be very interesting. It's just that the only one I've had in front of me as of yet was business news and I'm not that much interested in business news ^^;

Emoni · 17 Jan 2005

Hmm, interesting idea Stephen...

ax · 17 Jan 2005

ユーケンアクチュエリスタールトライチンッグチェムヒエー。
イフエングリスリッテンインカナメケスセンスエッオール。

アｘ

Glenn · 17 Jan 2005

Sometimes, but it's still a pain in the nipple to read.

stephenmunday · 17 Jan 2005

ｲｯﾄｶｲﾝﾀﾞﾒｰｸｽｾﾝｽ､ｱｲｹﾞｽ｡

ｾﾞｰｱｼｭｯﾄﾞﾋﾞｰｱﾎｰﾙｾｯｸｼｮﾝｵﾝｼﾞｽﾌｫｰﾗﾑﾃﾞｼﾞｹｰﾃｨｯﾄﾞﾄﾗｲﾃｨﾝｸﾞｲﾝｸﾞﾘｯｼｭｲﾝｶﾀｶﾅ｡

Glenn · 17 Jan 2005

I'm not so sure about that. Also, next time could you please use full-width kana? Reading the half-width stuff is a bit of a strain, and I'm already not-so-great with it. Of course, you could start a thread for that. ザットウオーッドエントレスチング、ドントユーシンク？

stephenmunday · 17 Jan 2005

ウープス。ハウアバウトジス？

Glenn · 17 Jan 2005

ザットイズベッター。３９。

Shisu · 17 Jan 2005

Well, when I learned hiragana, I "translated" japanese texts written in romaji to hiragana, using a chart at first of course, and then I tried without it.. But you seem to know the most of the katakana anyway..
I don't know anything else, but I used it for hiragana, and it went fine.. =)

Lawrence · 18 Jan 2005

I'm having a lot of trouble learning katakana too. Hiragana was easy because almost everything is written in it, but katakana is hardly anywhere. I just ended up carrying a sheet of paper with the kana written on it and consulted it every time I saw some katakana. It's taking a long time to learn but I can't think of a better method.

Elizabeth · 18 Jan 2005

nemesae said:
I'm not writing out much, just those symbols I don't know and at lyrics translations. But the newspaper would be very interesting. It's just that the only one I've had in front of me as of yet was business news and I'm not that much interested in business news ^^;

Complete List < Japan < Newspapers in the Yahoo! Directory

日本の新聞は興味があって読めるならいいですね。でも気軽に読める小説とかの方が日常的に使われている日本語の勉強になる事も進めます。

cacawate · 18 Jan 2005

アイウォーんツーヒイアサッモアトックライクジッス！！

Katakana study methods.

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先輩

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

先輩

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

一切皆苦

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

先輩

先輩

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先輩

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一切皆苦

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一切皆苦

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一切皆苦

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I wish I was Japanese....

先輩

観察するのが好きです

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