Question about katakana

[krs1]

When I write kombanwa in katakana it looks like コｍバンワ
Should there be a latin 'm' in there?
Please forgive me as I've only just started to learn!

 

[undrentide]

It is "konbanwa" not "kombanwa".
コンバンハ

 

[krs1]

Thanks! I thought something was wrong. I'm teaching myself and things like that really trip you over!
Cheers.

 

[Homerduff]

Why would you write konbanwa in katakana ?

 

[Glenn]

Practice?

---------------------------------

 

[JimmySeal]

The word is pronounced "kombanwa." ん/ン can represent 'n' or 'm' depending on the sound that follows it, but when entering it on a computer, you will always type 'n.'

 

[krs1]

yep just practice! How can I ensure I get the right romanji spellings (to enter in a computer) so my practice is accurate?

At the moment I'm pulling the words from various sites and they're not always correct!
Thanks.

 

[Glenn]

You don't type things like they're pronounced; you type them like they're spelled. There's no "m" in kana.

Also: ローマ字 -- note the lack of "n."

 

[TheImmigrantSong]

Hmmm I am a noob at Japanese (only studied it 6 months) but from what I understand, Katakana is ony used to spell out words of foriegn orgin, or words expressing onomatopoeia (ex. POW, BANG, those kinda words). You would not use katakana to write "konbanwa".

If you want to practice katakana, then try words of foriegn orgin like, "aisu hokkei" or Ice Hockey. Katakana is valuable because most words spelled in katakana you can figure out because they sound so close to their english counter parts. (Well most anyway).

But then again, I am just a stupid 16 year old kid, what the hell do I know? hahahaha.

 

[JimmySeal]

Katakana is used for many purposes other than spelling foreign words.

 

[krs1]

ok; would you please check I've got these right? : -

Good afternoon = Konnichiha = こんにちは = コンイチハ

Good evening = Konbanha = こんばんは = コンバンハ

I need to put 'ha' not 'wa' to get the correct hiragana & katakana in MS Word?

 

[TheImmigrantSong]

Katakana is used for many purposes other than spelling foreign words.

What other reasons? I know katakana is used for foreign words and onomatopoeia but those are the only two instances I know. How else is it used? Please tell, I would like to know as well!

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

There are many uses for katakana. One of the most interesting things about katakana is that it's considered to be the "male" script. Here's an excerpt from Tanizaki Junichiro's book, Kagi, which demonstrates this aspect perfectly.

一月一日。………僕ハ今年カラ、今日マデ日記ニ記スコ トヲ躊躇（ちゅうちょ）シテイタヨウナ事柄ヲモ敢テ書 キ留メルコトニシタ。
・・・
一月四日。………今日私は珍しい事件に出遇った。

The diary written with katakana is the husband's; the one written with hiragana is the wife's.

 

[Homerduff]

There are many uses for katakana. One of the most interesting things about katakana is that it's considered to be the "male" script. Here's an excerpt from Tanizaki Junichiro's book, Kagi, which demonstrates this aspect perfectly.
The diary written with katakana is the husband's; the one written with hiragana is the wife's.

Interesting ! Didnt knew katakana is used to express full male sentences. Knowing this, I understand why you write konbanwa in katakana..

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

I'm sorry, perhaps I was misleading.

Tanizaki's use of katakana for the husband's diary is purely stylistic. The idea that katakana is considered masculine and hiragana is considered feminine is true, and there is a history to that, but in terms of modern usage, it would be better to say that hiragana has a soft feel to it, certainly more gentle than katakana.

I would most highly advise against writing full sentences in katakana! That book I quoted is really hard to read until you get used to all the katakana, because no one, and I mean no one writes like that on a regular basis!

 

[JimmySeal]

I'm not sure exactly how long ago, but a few centuries ago, men mostly used katakana and kanji, but that is not the case anymore.

Nowadays, katakana is used more often than hiragana to write animal names. It's also used to write out words or the stems of conjugatable words to give them emphasis. And sometimes Japanese people will write their own names in katakana.

 

[yukio_michael]

Though this has nothing to do w/ katakana, I thought I'd add this concerning the possible pronunciations of the n phoneme (sorry whatever you want to call it...)

There's a special sound, /-n/, that deserves mention. Whenever you see the letter "n", but it's not followed immediately by another vowel or the letter "y", then it's the special /-n/. For example:

* san "three"
* nihon "Japan"
* shinbun "newspaper"
* sensei "teacher"
* tennō "emperor"

This /-n/ is called the moraic nasal.

The pronunciation of /-n/ changes with environment. So it could be pronounced as "m", or "n", or "ng", depending on what sound comes after. The rules get complicated, so just stick with either "ng" or "n" for now.

Approximate sound / Situation / Note

n / d, t
m / b, p / shinbun → shimbun


Sometimes we want the capital N rather than the regular consonant n even though the next sound is a vowel or a "y". To show this, we use the apostrophe:

kin'en (ki-n-e-n) no smoking vs. kinen (ki-ne-n) souvenir.
hon'ya - bookstore

The apostrophes shows that the words should be read as kiNeN and hoNya, not kineN and honya (which you would normally expect, because the "n" is followed by a vowel or the "y" sound).

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

The lawbooks used to be all written in katakana.

For an example, here is a link to the first chapter of the Imperial Constitution.

 

[Homerduff]

The lawbooks used to be all written in katakana.
For an example, here is a link to the first chapter of the Imperial Constitution.

For some reason, my pc doesnt allow me to see the characters. I get all kind of messed up characters like @ﾂ'åﾂ"ú–{'éﾂ'ƒn–œˆêŒnƒmﾂ"Vcﾂ"Vƒ'ﾂ"Ž¡ƒX, allthough I have Japanese language installed on my pc ?

I have had this several times for other sites too hmm, any idea how to solve this ?

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

Here is an excerpt from that page:

第一章
第一条
大日本帝国ハ万世一系ノ天皇之ヲ統治ス

第二条
皇位ハ皇室典範ノ定ムル所ニ依リ皇男子孫之ヲ継承ス

第三条
天皇ハ神聖ニシテ侵スヘカラス

第四条
天皇ハ国ノ元首ニシテ統治権ヲ総攬シ此ノ憲法ノ条規ニ依リ之ヲ行フ

Maybe if you tried manually setting the encoding it might work?

 

[Homerduff]

Yeah that worked !

Interesting though how katakana does have more functions than I knew in the beginning..

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

Oh there's more, but simply put, in modern usage, katakana is used to signify sounds as a general rule. That's why foreign words are generally written in katakana, because they are just being written as they sound. It's the same reason why sounds that animals make as well as exposion sounds, etc. are generally written in katakana.