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Katakana is the set of characters that is used to form words that have foreign origins.
Non-Japanese names are written in katakana. Sometimes it is also used as a
replacement for "difficult" kanji or for emphasis. Animal and fruit names are often written
in katakana for these reasons.
Katakana is like hiragana in that every basic character has the exact same sound as its
name. However, since there are more sounds in foreign words than in
Japanese, katakana has more characters and combinations than hiragana does. One
important character that is only used inkatakana is the chouon.
chouon: This katakana character does not
have its own pronunciation. It is used to
extend the vowel sound that comes before it.
In hiragana, if you wanted to extend
the asound in a word, you would write an
additionala character. In katakana, this is
done using thechouon instead.
The chouon can be used to extend any vowel
sound.
substance. Gurasu comes from English and means only 'a cup made of glass.'
Remember that katakana words are not actually the words that they are based on. Try
not to be tempted to use their original pronunciation as a substitute. Often, the original
word sounds so different from the Japanese version that it is completely
unrecognizable to Japanese ears.
Some general rules for rendering English words into katakana:
In words that contain an r sound after a vowel, the katakana word usually just extends
the vowel sound.
Ex: mark -> ma-ku (The - in these examples represents the chouon, above.)
Ex: fork -> fo-ku
The v sound is generally replaced by the b sound.
Ex: video -> bideo
D and t, when they do not have a vowel after them, are usually replaced
with do and to, respectively.
Ex: dress -> doresu
Ex: contest -> kontesuto
The "j" sound, when it doesn't have a vowel after it, is usually replaced with ji.
Ex: orange -> orenji
The other single consonant sounds, when they do not have a vowel after them, are
usually replaced with the appropriate consonant followed by u. (Some notable
exceptions to this are the words cake and steak, which turn into ke-ki and sute-ki.)
Ex: class -> kurasu
Ex: club -> kurabu
Ex: home -> ho-mu
L and r are both replaced with characters from the ra ri ru re ro line of the katakana
table.
Ex: milk -> miruku
Ex: room -> ru-mu
The "see" sound is generally replaced with shi. (The newer combination of
a se or su character followed by a half-sized u is used in some words.)
Ex: sink -> shinku