Usage of Hiragana/Katakana

SneffeL · 7 Feb 2005

I am currently year 1 of my japanese studies. The notes that my teacher gave contains Katakana with Hiragana. I was told to study Hiragana only but I am confused when do we exactly use Katakana with Hiragana. Don't they have the same meaning separately?

E.g. I am Rahim.

With Katakana, わたしはラヒムです。

Hiragana only, わたしはらひむです。

seasurfer · 7 Feb 2005

SneffeL said:
I am currently year 1 of my japanese studies. The notes that my teacher gave contains Katakana with Hiragana. I was told to study Hiragana only but I am confused when do we exactly use Katakana with Hiragana. Don't they have the same meaning separately?

E.g. I am Rahim.

With Katakana, わたしはラヒムです。

Hiragana only, わたしはらひむです。

Hi SneffeL,

Normally, katakana is used to when you want to transliterate foreign words and sounds, such as the name Rahim, the sound of laughing..etc. However, some sounds have kanji equivalents, so they are written in kanji.

Hiragana is normally used along with kanji to represents ordinary Japanese words.

Usage of Hiragana/Katakana

SneffeL

後輩

seasurfer

先輩

Similar threads