ハリーパットー is a loan word that means Harry Potter, a character from a famous book series. The purpose of his name being in katakana is because he is a foreigner, and the book series is also foreign.
The first example text explaining katakana said they are usually used "for writing loanwords and foreign names." This text also describes katakana as having mostly straight lines. This description of katakana is for the purpose of a short summary and comparison with hiragana and kanji.
The next text explains katakana as being used mostly for words borrowed from other languages and words for sounds. This ext does not place much importance on katakana at all, instead going into a much more detailed description of hiragana. This is probably because the process of learning Japanese may be more focused on learning Japanese words specifically, so loan words are not as important.
The third excerpt of text emphasizes the phonetic nature of katakana, also saying they are typically used for foreign names and loan words. This is also a very brief mention mostly used to show the variety of alphabets used in the Japanese writing system.
The last text is the most in-depth and complete description of katakana out of the four. In addition to the information already mentioned in the other texts, there is a mention of how the katakana system can be used for words the writer wishes to emphasize. The influence in popular culture of the use of loan words is also discussed, which is important because it brings to light how commonly katakana are used, and the large number of katakana words that exist, so many that "entire dictionaries are devoted just to foreign words and to onomatopoeia words." This text definitely gives the most complete explanation of katakana.
The first example text explaining katakana said they are usually used "for writing loanwords and foreign names." This text also describes katakana as having mostly straight lines. This description of katakana is for the purpose of a short summary and comparison with hiragana and kanji.
The next text explains katakana as being used mostly for words borrowed from other languages and words for sounds. This ext does not place much importance on katakana at all, instead going into a much more detailed description of hiragana. This is probably because the process of learning Japanese may be more focused on learning Japanese words specifically, so loan words are not as important.
The third excerpt of text emphasizes the phonetic nature of katakana, also saying they are typically used for foreign names and loan words. This is also a very brief mention mostly used to show the variety of alphabets used in the Japanese writing system.
The last text is the most in-depth and complete description of katakana out of the four. In addition to the information already mentioned in the other texts, there is a mention of how the katakana system can be used for words the writer wishes to emphasize. The influence in popular culture of the use of loan words is also discussed, which is important because it brings to light how commonly katakana are used, and the large number of katakana words that exist, so many that "entire dictionaries are devoted just to foreign words and to onomatopoeia words." This text definitely gives the most complete explanation of katakana.
5 comments:
nice ending! i totally didn't recall that last quote. i have yet to see a real katakana dictionary though!
This is a pretty complete summary of the textbook explanations of katakana. The first examples seem a bit disjointed from the summary of the textbook explanations though. Maybe if you integrated the examples more with the explanation it may make this a smoother read.
Also, I recommend that you do a bit of research beyond what the textbooks tell you--you'd be surprised to see what else katakana is used for! :) (It's really prevalent in advertising and brand names, for example).
Good luck with your Japanese study!
Veronica
3rd year Japanese
Smith College
I didn't know that there were katakana/foreign loan word dictionaries!
thanks.
i will definitely do that!! :D
It's interesting to see so many different intepretation for Katakana. Katakana is flexible so that people can create new words. We can also see how the society changed through Katakana!
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