Maintaining my Katakana

jacobholm · 7 Aug 2009

How do I maintain my katakana? As I understand it manga only contains a little of it, in foreign words and effects? Studying each kana one at the time works, but is very boring in the long run.. Anyone got any tips?

Thanks in advance!

/Jacob

Jimi · 7 Aug 2009

Uhmm... there are probably a ton of games on the internet... or you can make Flash cards or memory yourself...

(i cant post URL's yet cause of my amount of posts)

Jericho Desu · 7 Aug 2009

Write a diary in Japanese using only katakana, doesn't need to be detailed stuff.

jacobholm · 7 Aug 2009

Thanks! I'll search for games, seems like there are mostly small ones, would be nice with an "English" game that used only katakana =P Thinking of buying a Nintendo DSi as well, there are some nice kana games to help you write.

jacobholm · 7 Aug 2009

Jericho Desu said:
Write a diary in Japanese using only katakana, doesn't need to be detailed stuff.

Hehe, not a bad idea! Only thing is.. should I just match the katakana as good as I can? I've seen different katakana for different words.

Mikawa Ossan · 7 Aug 2009

メニューへ移動します | McDonald's Japan

Cheers!

Jimi · 7 Aug 2009

Mikawa Ossan said:
"URL"
Cheers!

Hahaha thats awesome!

Thinking of buying a Nintendo DSi as well, there are some nice kana games to help you write.

YOU SHOULD!!! Also, buy an R4 card, its like a memory stick. You can download games for free and put them on the card, then play it... And a card like that is cheaper than a real game! ( i have one! )

Jericho Desu · 7 Aug 2009

Jimi said:
YOU SHOULD!!! Also, buy an R4 card, its like a memory stick. You can download games for free and put them on the card, then play it... And a card like that is cheaper than a real game! ( i have one! )

Not allowed to mention illegal things like this.

jacobholm · 7 Aug 2009

Mikawa Ossan said:
(url)
Cheers!

Nice, good thinking! Thanks a lot =)

EDIT: Hah, this is awesome! Ha..n..ba..ga =)

nekojita · 7 Aug 2009

This is a ranking of the katakana words/phrases that native speakers most often get wrong:
gooランキング - あらゆるものをランキングで紹介！ランキングの総合サイト
And this one is quite good too:
gooランキング - あらゆるものをランキングで紹介！ランキングの総合サイト

How much katakana you get depends on the manga; something historical will probably have relatively little katakana. Something about an army of robots orbiting Jupiter will probably have a large amount of it. A love story set in modern-day Japan will be somewhere in the middle.

jacobholm · 7 Aug 2009

I have now learnt all the katakana. I will look through your links and correct the ones I've possibly got wrong. I've started on Hiragana now. Any tips on maintaining this? is it just like katakana when it comes to manga(foreign words and space robots etc)?

nekojita · 8 Aug 2009

Although it is true that you tend to get less katakana practice when reading than hiragana, to be honest, I would suggest just reading stuff that interests you without worrying too much about that.

You should expect a normal mix of kanji and kana (hiragana/katakana) with the balance of each depending on what the subject is. Katakana is not only used for foreign words; it is often used for writing names of ingredients, e.g. スイカ for 西瓜, タコ for 蛸 would be perfectly common (although presumably not in the same recipe!). Also animals often end up in katakana as well: these are examples quickly culled from the newspaper: クマ, ヤギ, オオタカ, ニワトリ.

The choice of whether to write a given word in kanji/kana is often stylistic and may depend on the impression the writer wishes to give. If you want things written all in kana or mostly in kana with very little kanji you'll have to look at things written for children.

jacobholm · 8 Aug 2009

The animals; クマ, ヤギ, オオタカ, ニワトリ.

Do these kana represent english words? Because if they do, I'm completely lost..

nekojita · 8 Aug 2009

jacobholm said:
The animals; クマ, ヤギ, オオタカ, ニワトリ.

Do these kana represent english words? Because if they do, I'm completely lost..

No, they're Japanese words. It is possible to write all of them in kanji: 熊、山羊、大鷹、鶏
It's just very common to write animal names in katakana in certain contexts (i.e. newspapers tend to do this a lot). Not always, e.g. here's someone's blog about goats where they use primarily 山羊 (and happen to have some great pictures!)

undrentide · 9 Aug 2009

nekojita said:
No, they're Japanese words. It is possible to write all of them in kanji: 熊、山羊、大鷹、鶏
It's just very common to write animal names in katakana in certain contexts (i.e. newspapers tend to do this a lot). Not always, e.g. here's someone's blog about goats where they use primarily 山羊 (and happen to have some great pictures!)

Adding a little more information to nekojita's explanation, name of living things (animals, insects, fish, plants, for example) in a scientific context is basically to be written in katakana.
アサガオ（朝顔）
アザミ（薊）
Tese are pages from a botanical guidebook.
First the name is written katakana, then followed by kanji (when it exists).

Typical context for katakana:
1. foreign words (words, name,etc.)
2. opnomatopoeia, mimetic words
3. emphrasis (like italic in English)
4. Scientifi/engineering words

jacobholm · 10 Aug 2009

Great, this really helps, thanks! I've memorized JLPT4 now =) I was just wondering, does 山羊 mean mountain goat? Mountain something?

EDIT: Ah, I saw above that it was mentioned that 羊 was goat, so I guess mountain goat would be correct =) Wuupii

Toritoribe · 11 Aug 2009

jacobholm said:
I was just wondering, does 山羊 mean mountain goat? Mountain something?
EDIT: Ah, I saw above that it was mentioned that 羊 was goat, so I guess mountain goat would be correct =) Wuupii

No. 山羊 reffers to simply "goat," not "mountain goat." 羊 is "sheep," not "goat."
「やぎ」の検索結果 - Yahoo!辞書
「ひつじ」の検索結果 - Yahoo!辞書

Indeed, "山 + animal/plant" originally means "mountain/wild animal/plant," e.g., "山桜: mountain cherry," "山猿: wild monkey," but some compounds refer to different species from originals.

山羊（やぎ, not やまひつじ）: goat
山桃: bayberry
山猫: lynx
山犬: Japanese wolf

The last two also mean "wild cat," "wild dog" respectively, depending on the context.

jacobholm · 11 Aug 2009

Toritoribe said:
No. 山羊 reffers to simply "goat," not "mountain goat." 羊 is "sheep," not "goat."
「やぎ」の検索結果 - Yahoo!辞書
 「ひつじ」の検索結果 - Yahoo!辞書

Indeed, "山 + animal/plant" originally means "mountain/wild animal/plant," e.g., "山桜: mountain cherry," "山猿: wild monkey," but some compounds refer to different species from originals.

山羊（やぎ, not やまひつじ）: goat
山桃: bayberry
山猫: lynx
山犬: Japanese wolf

The last two also mean "wild cat," "wild dog" respectively, depending on the context.

ah, I see.. I guess I will learn as I get familiar with each word separately. Thanks =)

Koos83 · 30 Aug 2009

This is a site with online games for katakana and hiragana practice.
I use them a lot as they are fun, and you can do them in 5 minutes and have practiced it.

http : // ww w . learn-hiragana-katakana. com/
(lose the spaces)

jacobholm · 31 Aug 2009

Koos83 said:
This is a site with online games for katakana and hiragana practice.
I use them a lot as they are fun, and you can do them in 5 minutes and have practiced it.

http : // ww w . learn-hiragana-katakana. com/
(lose the spaces)

Thank you very much

Ryan- · 3 Sep 2009

I've seen beginning readers that write stories exclusively in Katakana designed for practice. It's pretty terribly to read entire passages like that.

jacobholm · 3 Sep 2009

I've started on a japanese course, and our teacher said that childrens books often are written entirely in hiragana. So I might just go buy one =)

Maintaining my Katakana

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