Katakana Writing

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.

The spelling of katakana words of foreign origins is supposed to be based on

pronunciation. The sounds are generally matched to words as most Japanese hear
them. Unfortunately, there are some limitations. Aside from the character n, every
character in katakana is made of a vowel attached to a consonant. This means that
where there should be two consonants next to one another in a foriegn word, there is a
vowel between them in the Japanese version of the word. Also, since Japanese has
only five vowel sounds, and a limited number of consonants, substitutions are often
made with the "closest" sound, sometimes making the words sound very little like the
original. There is also the problem that some katakana words have been based on the
spelling of the word instead of the pronunciation.
Please note, also, that NOT all words in katakana come from English. In recent times,
the majority of imported words in Japanese come from English, however, this was not
always the case. There are many words that have been imported from Portuguese,
Dutch, or German. There are, for example, two words for "glass" in Japanese. One
is garasu and the other is gurasu. Garasu comes from Dutch, and means only glass the

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

The tu sound is generally replaced with chu. (The newer combination of

the to character followed by a half-sized u is used in some words.)
Ex: tube -> chu-bu
The soft "th" sound is replaced with characters from the sa shi su se so row of the
katakana table.
Ex: thank you -> sankyu-
Ex: bath -> basu
The hard "th" sound is replaced with characters from the za ji zu ze zo row of the
katakana table.
Ex: weather -> ueza-
Since the only w sound in Japanese is wa, all other w sounds are generally replaced
with u.
Ex: wine -> wain
Ex: waiter -> ue-ta-
Ex: whisky -> uisuki-
Words that have a short vowel followed by a consonant will often double the consonant.
(This is not the case when the consonant is n.)
Ex: truck -> torakku
Ex: bed -> beddo
Ex: pet -> petto
Ex: pen -> pen
The "y" sound, except when followed by a, o, or u, is usually replaced with i.
Ex: you -> yu-
Ex: year -> iya-
In order to make foreign words sound more like their originals, additional character
combinations have been introduced. These new combinations represent fa, fi, fe, fo, si,
ti, tu, di, du, wi, we, wo, va, vi, vu, ve, vo, tsa, tsi, tse, tso, che, she, and je. This means
that words that came into the language earlier will sometimes follow different spelling
rules than words that have been introduced more recently. Unfortunately, most
Japanese people do not actually pronounce some of the new characters as they are
intended to be used (especially the characters with v and w). So, the spelling has
become more complicated without making the pronunciation much better. Some words
even have more than one acceptable spelling now.
Ex: fork -> ho-ku (old ho spelling)

Ex: fork -> fo-ku (new fo spelling)

Ex: vendor -> benda- (old be spelling)
Ex: vendor -> venda- (new ve spelling, still usually pronounced as be)
Now that we've gotten all that tedious explanation out of the way, let's get on to actually
writing the characters.
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