Tag: katakana

The Best Hiragana & Katakana Learning Resources

[ad_1]

Hiragana and katakana are literally the ABCs of Japanese. They’re the most basic types of Japanese characters and essential parts of the Japanese language. Learning these two types of characters is often the very first step to learning Japanese, too.

Being able to read hiragana and katakana is amazing because it’s such an immediately practical skill. You see them everywhere in Japan. The scenery of Japan, or even your neighborhood Asian grocery store may start to look different once you know hiragana and katakana.

Luckily, they’re fairly easy to master, too. No, you don’t need a photographic memory or superpower to memorize all of them. All you need is the right method and tools to study effectively and efficiently.

There are 46 hiragana characters for hiragana and katakana respectively. Memorizing 92 characters with unfamiliar shapes might sound intimidating now, but trust me. People have learned them in a couple weeks, a few days, or even a few hours with these effective methods.

If you want to study hiragana and katakana fairly quickly, and never forget them, you’ve come to the right place. I’ll talk about how you can do it, and introduce some of the best kana learning resources you can use for a successful kana learning experience.

How To Learn Hiragana & Katakana

First, let me go through the three key points for successful kana learning.

1. Use memory hints aka “mnemonics”

Memory hints, aka mnemonics, are honestly the game changer in remembering foreign characters like hiragana, katakana, and even kanji. Using mnemonics, you can easily associate the shape of kana with the reading.
Curious how mnemonics actually work? Here’s an example to remember hiragana “ki” (き). This one is pretty simple. Just think of a key! 🔑

Remembering a bunch of unfamiliar shapes suddenly sounds doable, right? Mnemonics make things easy to remember, recall, and not forget. It really is a powerful tool for kana learning.

2. Prioritize “reading” over “writing”

Focus on reading first. Not writing. I know, it’s not the traditional way children learn their characters. But, learning to read is more important as the most common form of “writing” nowadays is typing. (If you can read kana, you can type them.)

Being able to handwrite hiragana from memory is a great skill to have too, but it takes a lot more time to master and has fewer real-life benefits. I recommend you save it for later. Handwriting or tracing over the characters with your fingers can be a great way to spend time observing the shapes closely, but always keep in mind the “reading” priority rather than being able to handwrite from your memory. At least, for now.

3. Practice recalling

Once you become familiar with the kana, practice reading repeatedly. Make sure to review items you’ve learned and keep it up. And when you review, focus on your recall. The more effort you put into recalling something, the stronger memory your brain will end up building.

The Best Resources for Learning Hiragana/Katakana

So now that we’ve talked about the three key points for successful kana learning, you may be thinking, “What tools can I use to learn hiragana and katakana?”

I got you — I put together a list of some of the best kana learning resources. They, of course, have small differences, but they all feature mnemonics and reading practice, which are the key points for successful kana learning.

Resource	Format	Pros & Cons
Tofugu’s Learn Hiragana/Katakana Books	PDF books	👍 Free! 👍 Quality mnemonics 👍 Bonus handwriting exercises to help you associate the shape with the reading 👍 Other Tofugu kana learning resources are available 👎 No audio (though the web page versions do have audio)
HIRAGANA/KATAKANA Memory Hint	iOS/Android Apps	👍 Free! 👎 Only offers multiple choice quizzes 👎 Glitchy — some features (like audio play) may not work
Learn Languages with Dr. Moku	iOS/Android Apps	👍 Animated mnemonic illustrations and audio reading aloud mnemonics 👎 In-app purchase is required for the full coverage of kana
Hiragana/Katakana in 1 Hour – How to Write and Read Japanese	YouTube Video Lessons	👍 Free! 👎 Being a video lesson, it’s hard to navigate and reference a specific kana

Now, let’s take a closer look at each resource.

Tofugu’s Learn Hiragana/Katakana Books

image of some pages from tofugu's learn hiragana and katakana books

Before anything, let me talk about Tofugu’s own products — our Learn Hiragana/Katakana Book series. This is a shameless plug as I am very proud of all the learners who successfully learned kana with our books and proved them to be effective. They’re also available for free, so nothing to lose if you give them a try.

Tofugu’s Learn Hiragana/Katakana Book series consists of two PDF workbooks, so you can print or use them on your device offline. The workbooks cover everything you need to know about hiragana and katakana. You’ll learn how to pronounce, and how to remember each character with mnemonics and writing practice sheets. There are also reading practice exercises to help you review what you’ve just learned by filling in romaji. The quiz uses actual words made from the characters you’ve learned, creating a rewarding moment that hopefully makes you go “Woah, I can read Japanese words!” and motivates you to keep going.

More than anything, the ultimate focus of our content is the quality of mnemonics. We’ve been updating and improving our mnemonics ever since we first published them, and that’s what makes our kana content special. For example, to explain the pronunciation of each kana, we use an English word that uses the same or very similar sound so that you know exactly how to pronounce it. And, when possible, we use the English keyword for mnemonics too. For example, the hiragana い sounds just like “e” as in “eel.” And to help you associate the sound and the shape of the characters, we use the same keyword “eel,” and say い looks like two eels hanging out. Another common mnemonic for い is that it looks like the number eleven as in 11 (which, it totally does!) but we choose “eels” for the more accurate pronunciation. We believe that learning kana is also about learning the sounds of the Japanese language and the basics of Japanese pronunciation, so we hope those keywords help you remember the correct pronunciation.

We also keep our mnemonic art simple in a way that makes it easy to see the original shape of the character. Not many mnemonics out there have this quality, and it’s sometimes hard to recognize the original shape in the mnemonic art.

If you are looking for a one-stop solution for kana learning, you won’t be disappointed with Tofugu’s Learn Hiragana/Katakana Books.

Format	PDF Workbooks
Pros	Free! Most of the mnemonics use English keywords that are close to the Japanese sound of the character Mnemonic art doesn’t interfere with the original shape of the character Comes with writing sheets to help you associate the shape with the reading More kana learning tools available to mix and match at Tofugu
Cons
Product Link

For those who want to be able to listen to the pronunciation of each kana…

we have web page versions too — Learn Hiragana: The Ultimate Guide and Learn Katakana: The Ultimate Guide. While these don’t come with writing sheets, you can play the audio, which is always a bonus.

So there you have it. We actually have more kana learning tools in various formats and for different purposes, so check out the list below to find something that suits your preference and needs. You can mix and match too — they’re all free!

Web Pages
They come with audio so you can hear how each character is pronounced.
YouTube Video Lessons
Mnemonic Charts
A quick reference chart of our mnemonics.
Quiz/Review

HIRAGANA/KATAKANA Memory Hint

Learn Languages with Dr. Moku (Hiragana & Katakana)

Format	Mobile Apps (iOS/Android)
Pros	Mnemonics and quizzes in one app Seamless app experience to learn and review kana Visually appealing with quality illustrations and animations
Cons	Not free to learn all kana, so pretty much, you’re expected to pay Quiz results don’t tell you what specific character you had a hard time with The paid “Practice” feature won’t consider what kana you may already know
Product Link	Dr. Moku

Learn ALL Hiragana/Katakana in 1 Hour – How to Write and Read Japanese (JapanesePod101.com)

Format	Mobile Apps (iOS/Android)
Pros	Quality videos A short explanation about where you might see the kana in Japanese grammar A thorough, yet easy-to-understand overview of kana Tips to tell similar-looking kana apart Free!
Cons	English keywords for mnemonics often not matching the actual kana reading The lack of timestamp makes it hard to navigate and reference a specific kana It might not be easy for everyone to sit through the entire video, as suggested by the title
Product Link

For Extra Quiz Practice and Reviews

The resources that I’ve talked about so far are all one-stop solutions that help you remember kana with mnemonics and review and practice through quizzes. As I’ve mentioned, kana is everywhere. Once you start studying other aspects of the Japanese language, you’ll see them constantly. So in a way, you’ll be naturally reinforcing your kana knowledge moving forward. That said, you’ll want to first practice a lot and make sure you solidify your kana knowledge.

You can get some practice in with the resources above, but I also wanted to introduce you to a couple other tools specifically designed to quiz your kana knowledge for extra practice. One standout feature is that they let you actually type in romaji for the kana readings instead of just offering you multiple choice answers. This means they are a better assessment of your true kana knowledge, and can help you identify what kana you might be struggling to remember.

Tofugu’s Learn Kana Quiz

This is another shameless plug (okay okay, I promise this will be the last).

Tofugu’s Learn Kana Quiz is a web app originally designed to be a quiz tool to help you solidify the kana knowledge from our kana products, such as the workbooks and web pages I introduced earlier. However, it would be a great companion for really any kind of kana-learning resource as what it does is allow you to practice whatever kana you want, as many times as you want. It also helps you to identify the characters you still have a hard time with.

The way it works is simple. On the main page, you get to choose the kana you want to practice by column (a set of three to five characters). You can check all hiragana or all katakana with a single button too, if you’re already familiar with all the kana listed.

During the quiz, you’ll be prompted with a set of the selected hiragana characters and asked to type in the readings for each one. You can choose to skip items so you can save the ones you have a hard time recalling and circle back on those later. We believe the act of recalling is important, so unlike any other quiz tools, we actually won’t tell you the correct answer even when you get things wrong. (We intentionally make it hard to cheat, and it’s all for you!) However, you can try answering the same item until you type in the right answer so you can test your recall over and over.

Then, when you finish a session, the results show you how many failed attempts you had with the characters you couldn’t answer correctly at the first go. This will help you identify what kana characters are not still sticking in your memory so you can do something about them — revisiting the mnemonics, inventing new mnemonics, or tracing the characters — whatever you gotta do to finally remember them!

Format	Web App
Pros	You can select what kana columns you want to practice Doesn’t show the correct answer Results show the number of failed attempts for each character
Cons
Product Link	Tofugu’s Learn Kana Quiz

Real Kana

Format	Mobile Apps (iOS/Android)
Pros	Various font options The ability to select what kana you want to practice by column Practice options that use kana-only vocabulary from all JLPT levels “Speed mode” lets you go through quizzes quickly
Cons	The iOS design is so simple and minimal that it could confuse some users
Product Link	Real Kana

So this is it! Hope you found something that you want to give a try in this article. Again, being able to read kana is a big first step, and it’s not as hard as you think. I hope the methods and resources that I talked about will give you a great head start on your Japanese learning journey! Happy Kana Learning!

[ad_2]

Kanae Nakamine

Source link

August 9, 2023

Tofugu’s Learn Kana Quiz Tool
[ad_1]
Looking for a simple tool to practice reading hiragana and katakana, as many times as you want to?

Well, Tofugu’s Learn Kana Quiz might be a perfect tool for you.

We actually made this kana quiz tool a few years ago as a companion to our Learn Hiragana Guide and Learn Katakana Guide. Since then, many beginner level Japanese learners have used it as a tool to test their kana knowledge, and simply practice reading kana over and over.

There are a few things that we like about our kana quiz tool. And I hope you’ll like them too.

You can choose which kana you want to practice.
If you are still trying to memorize all the kana, you’d want to be quizzed with just the kana you’ve already studied. Many quiz tools let you practice a set of randomly-picked kana. While these can be great for when you’re already familiar with all the kana. Our quiz tool lets you select which kana you want to practice by the kana column. That way you can focus on only the specific ones you want to practice.
　

You’re forced to “try” recalling.
Quiz tools usually give you the correct answer immediately when you get something wrong. Well, our quiz tool doesn’t. This is because we want you to try hard to recall what the character is. There’s no reason to hurry here. Take your time staring and paying attention to the shape of the character. Try to remember how you became familiar with the character in the first place (“What was the mnemonic I used for this kana?” etc.).

You can identify the kana you’re still having trouble with.
In the results page, you’ll see which kana you had a hard time with. It will show you the kana that you got incorrect, along with the number of failed attempts you made. This tells you which kana you’d want to put extra focus on. Maybe tracing over that kana with your finger would help. Or, if you realize the kana’s mnemonic is not quite working for you, you can even come up with your own way to remember it.

…Does it sound like something you want to try out? Tofugu’s Learn Kana Quiz is available for free out on the wild internet. Check it out!
[ad_2]

Kanae Nakamine

Source link
January 30, 2023

Katakanization: The Secret Rules of Converting English into Japanese

[ad_1]

Japanese words that even the most proficient learners of the language find the hardest to pronounce can be, ironically, the ones borrowed from their own native tongue.

My wife, who’s originally from the United States and now is a fluent speaker of Japanese after living in Japan for 15 years, still struggles to pronounce one of her home country’s most well-known brands — “McDonald’s,” which in Japanese is マクドナルド (makudonarudo).

Knowing how katakanization works is an important practical skill for native English speakers who study Japanese.

Words of English origin, when they get converted to katakana, often throw off native speakers of English. This is because it’s hard to unlearn their native tongue’s phonology — the sound system with a set of rules that they subconsciously follow since their early childhood — and then modify the original sound to match the Japanese phonology. I call this process katakanization because foreign words adapted into Japanese are typically spelled with katakana characters and are commonly called katakana-go (katakana words).

In my opinion as a native speaker of Japanese and a language lover, knowing how katakanization works is an important practical skill for native English speakers who study Japanese. Not only can the ability to pronounce these words help you to be more easily understood by Japanese speakers, it also has the added benefit of expanding your vocabulary, and almost instantaneously, without as much effort as you might think. And as you might already know, we use a lot of katakanized loanwords of English origin. Like, a lot.

So I am writing this article with the hope of helping native-English-speaking Japanese learners who struggle with one of the biggest quirks of the Japanese language — katakana words. Later in this article, you will learn three basic rules for how to katakanaize English words. I am hoping they will help you to be able to katakanize words on your own so that you can pronounce words of English origin in a way that Japanese speakers can easily understand.

Prerequisites: To get the most out of this article, you should already know katakana (especially how to pronounce them). If you need to brush up, have a look at our Ultimate Katakana Guide.

Why Katakanize?

Before getting into the basic katakanization rules, first, let me explain a little more about why I think you should learn them.

Nobody Wants That “Oh-No-This-Person-Is-Talking-to-Me-in-English Look,” Right?

One of the most common reasons I hear some learners (even when their Japanese is pretty advanced) avoid katakanizing English words is, “Why can’t I just pronounce English words correctly?”

The answer is pretty simple. Many Japanese speakers wouldn’t be able to understand it unless they know the original English pronunciation of the word. Isn’t “being able to communicate with Japanese people” the whole point of studying Japanese (at least, for many of you), anyway?

Code-switching to your native tongue compromises intelligibility.

While code-switching to your native tongue may give you some authenticity as the speaker of the original language, it compromises intelligibility. You could try asking “McDonald’s-tte doko desu ka?” (Where is McDonald’s?) with perfectly-pronounced McDonald’s on the street in Japan. You could also try asking where “Seven-Eleven” is without katakanizing it to sebun irebun (セブンイレブン). In either case, you would most likely get that horrified, oh-no-this-person-is-talking-to-me-in-English look.

Note that for katakanized words that are particularly long and can be a little bit trippy, you can usually shorten them — in fact, many Japanese people do! Take the previous example of マクドナルド; this can be shortened to マック or マクド. Similarly, セブンイレブン becomes セブン. So don’t worry if you don’t have full confidence of pronunciation just at the start.

Japanese Speakers Use English Loanwords, Like A Lot

Japanese people use 3,000 – 5,000 loanwords in daily conversations, and 94% of them are of English origin.

Names of restaurant and store chains are not the only English words borrowed into the Japanese language. English-derived loanwords have been deeply woven into Japanese, both written and spoken. A study from the 1990s ^{showed that over 35% of all vocabulary printed in 70 Japanese magazines were foreign loanwords, most of them being of English origin. A 2010 book about wasei eigo (Japan-made English) ^{also indicated that Japanese people use 3,000 – 5,000 loanwords in daily conversations, and 94% of them are of English origin. Of course, these studies are from years ago, so we probably use even more katakana words in Japanese today. The point is, it’s so hard to carry on conversations in Japanese without Western loanwords that Japan even has a drinking game where you have to take a shot every time you use one!}}

The portion of English loanwords in Japanese is increasing with the influx of new technologies and concepts are evident in software manuals like: アイコンをダブルクリックしてアプリケーションをインストールします icon-o doubleclick-shite application-o install-shimasu “Doubleclick the icon to install the application.” With this, it’s becoming all the more beneficial to know how katakanization works. While having to Japanize your native tongue can be a challenge, it may help you become more approachable for people who grew up speaking Japanese.

Unpronounceable English Sounds

You may also want to ask why Japanese speakers katakanize English words in the first place. It’s simply because many sound patterns in English are not permitted in the Japanese phonology, just like the French guttural /r/ isn’t in English. One of the (many) reasons why English pronunciation is a pure nightmare for Japanese high school kids is that Japanese does not allow any syllables ending with a consonant with the exception of /n/ (ン). English has thousands of words ending with consonants like cat, look and ship but they are simply unpronounceable in the Japanese phonological universe.

There is no choice other than to katakanize loanwords to make them pronounceable within the Japanese phonology.

Complex syllables like strength, sixth and clothes are even more unpronounceable for Japanese speakers because the Japanese phonology doesn’t permit two or more consonants to be squeezed together. The English /th/ sound is totally impermissible in Japanese — in fact, in most human languages ^{— and therefore needs to be replaced with the closest Japanese sound /s/ as in surī (スリー) “three.” Simply put, there is no choice other than to katakanize them to make them pronounceable within the Japanese phonology.}

So katakanization doesn’t exactly happen because of the writing system. It’s precisely because of the Japanese phonology that governs how words are pronounced in the language.

Basic Conversion Rules

illustration of three katakanization rules

So how exactly does katakanization work? Although we have some exceptions, there are three basic conversion rules that native Japanese speakers subconsciously apply.

Note: IPA symbols we use in this article are based on American English pronunciations.

Rule #1: Add Vowels

When a consonant is not immediately followed by a vowel, you add a vowel.

This is because each sound usually involves a vowel in Japanese. The ン (/n/, or /m/) sound is an exception, but besides that, a unit of Japanese sounds is either a single vowel like ア /a/ – イ /i/ – ウ /u/ – エ /e/ – オ /o/, or a set of consonant and a vowel like カ /ka/ – キ /ki/ – ク /ku/ – ケ /ke/ – コ /ko/. If you know how katakana works, this probably makes sense to you.

Now, what vowel should I be adding, right? That is:

/o/ after /t/ or /d/
/i/ after /ch/ or /j/
Nothing after /n/ and /r/
/u/ elsewhere.

Let’s use the word “risk” as an example. First, r is followed by a vowel i, so you just leave it alone. But the rest, s and k are not followed by a vowel. For s, you add u. For k, add u. And you’ll get ri-su-ku — リスク.

Take a look at another example — the word “size.” When you try to parse it, you see two pairs of a consonant and a vowel — si and ze. So it would be… シゼ…? No, not that. Be careful not to get confused with the spelling and the sound. The word “size” sounds like “saiz,” right? In case you can’t think of the phonetic spelling off the top of your head, there are converters like this that might come handy for katakanization. Now, going back to the “size (saiz)”, z is the only sound that’s not followed by a vowel. So you add a u there, and now you’ve got sa-i-zu — サイズ. That’s how you write and say “size” in Japanese.

Rule #2: Replace Sounds

Replace illegitimate sounds with similar legitimate Japanese sounds.

You might already know this, but the Japanese language has fewer sounds than the sounds English has. Like I mentioned earlier, the th /θ/ sound doesn’t really exist in Japanese, and the closest sound is the s sound. This is why “three” becomes surii (スリー) and “thank you” becomes sankyū (サンキュー) in Japanese. Just like that, for sounds that the Japanese language doesn’t have, you’ll be replacing sounds with the Japanese equivalents. Now let’s take a deeper look.

Vowels

As you may know, Japanese has only five vowel sounds ア, イ, ウ, エ, and オ. That’s obviously more limited compared to English — for example, English has three “a” sounds (/æ/, /ʌ/, /ə/), but ア replaces them all.

	IPA	Examples
	IPA	US English	Japanese
ア	æ	apple /ˈæpəl/	アップル
	ʌ	umbrella /ʌmˈbɹɛlə/	アンブレラ
	ə	account /əˈkaʊnt/	アカウント
イ	ɪ	east /iːst/	イースト
ウ	ʊ	oops /ʊps/	ウップス
エ	ɛ	every day /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/	エブリデイ
オ	ɔ	on /ɔn/	オン

All examples above start with vowels for the sake of example, but of course, this replacement rule applies to a combination of vowels and consonants.

hat /ˈhæt/	ハット
hut /hʌt/

Words “hat” and “hut” — they have the different “a” sounds, but in Japanese, they both get converted to ハット because the /æ/ and /ʌ/ sounds both replace to ア. This means “cowboy hat” (カウボーイハット) and “Pizza Hut” (ピザハット) — they both use ハット despite the difference in the English sounds.

Also, when it comes to vowels, pay attention to the length of the vowel in question. Long, extended vowel sounds are represented as “ー,” the hyphen-looking symbol in Japanese. For example, “pull” is プル (puru), but “pool” is プール (pūru). An /r/ after a vowel as in car, four and earth becomes the extension of the vowel as well. So, much like in British English, car is カー (kā), four is フォー (fō) and earth is アース (āsu).

Consonants

Now, onto consonants! Just like some of the vowels, there are several English consonant sounds that don’t really exist in Japanese, and thus get replaced with the closest sound instead. Here are some examples.

	IPA	Examples
		US English	Japanese
s-sounds サシスセソ	s	mouse /ˈmaʊs/	マウス
	θ	mouth /ˈmaʊθ/
b-sounds バビブべボ	b	berry /ˈbɛri/	ベリー
	v	very /ˈvɛri/
r-sounds ラリルレロ	l	lease /ˈliːs/	リース
	r	wreath /ˈriːθ/
jy-sounds ジャジュジョ	dʒ	legion /ˈliʤən/	リージョン
	ʒ	lesion /ˈliʒən/
z-sounds ザジズゼゾ	ð	then /ðɛn/	ゼン
	z	zen /zɛn/

Now, looking at this list, can you guess what the word “belly” would look like in katakana?

Belly would be ベリー, just like “berry” and “very.” That’s because there’s no difference in sound between “b” and “v” nor “r” and “l” in Japanese. ベリー interesting (…and potentially ベリー confusing), right?

There are also a few consonant + vowel pairs that we pronounce differently in English yet get represented with the same katakana character in Japanese. These differences might be more subtle than the ones shown above, but for example, si and shi both become シ. So “sea” and “she” both become シー in katakana. Similarly, the voiced versions of these sounds, “zi” and “ji” both become ジ.

Rule #3: Duplicate Consonants

Duplicate the “stop” consonant at the end of the word if it occurs after a short vowel.

Bit, dip, look… What makes these words sound so skippy? It is the quick “pause” between sounds. In romaji to represent this kind of sound, we use duplicated consonants like bitto, right? In katakana, we use ッ (the small tsu) as in ビット to represent these quick pauses. You’ll be duplicating the “stop” consonants, which are /p/, /b/, /ch/, /j/, /t/, /d/, /k/ and /g/ — sounds you make by blocking the air flow.

Now, let’s practice katakanizing “dip” and “look” — “dip” becomes ディップ (dippu) and “look” becomes ルック(rukku). Are you getting the gist?

Bear in mind this rule generally applies to the last syllable only. For example, picnic becomes pikunikku (ピクニック) instead of pikkunikku (ピックニック). Also don’t forget this only happens to the consonant after a short vowel as opposed to long vowels, like beat, deep, or Luke.

illustration of a person thinking about the correct katakinization for cake

Congrats, you’ve just learned the three basic rules of katakanization! Although these three rules account for most katakanization processes, they won’t simply make you a master of katakanization. You’ll still encounter curve balls and some tricky ones — for these, you still need to make small adjustments here and there.

Combination Katakana

If you’re hoping to take your katakanization to the next level, it would be a good idea to review combination katakana. Combination katakana are katakana characters made of a combination with a small character like フォ, ティ, or ジュ.

For example, you might expect “cat” to become katto (カット), but it actually has to be kyatto (キャット) because the vowel of cat makes the c sound more like the Japanese /kya/ sound than the /ka/ sound. Similarly, “gap” becomes gyappu (ギャップ) instead of gappu (ガップ). That’s too easy? These might be relatively common katakana combinations, but there are some curveballs you might not be so familiar with — like トゥ as in トゥモロー (tomorrow), or デュ as in デュエット (duet).

These combination katakana are the unsung heroes of katakana. They allow us to represent sounds that we didn’t have in Japanese — the sounds are even closer to the original English pronunciations.

Today, loanwords have a tendency to apply combination katakana to better represent the original sounds.

However, combination katakana can be less familiar and not-so-easy-to-pronounce for Japanese speakers, especially older folks. Today, loanwords have a tendency to apply combination katakana to better represent the original sounds, but this wasn’t always the case. For example, “idea” used to be commonly written as アイデア in katakana, but these days, アイディア is far more common. And, this leads to the next note: watch out for older loanwords!

Watch Out for Older Loanwords

Some of you may have already noticed common English loanwords don’t really follow the basic rules. Like, kēki (ケーキ) “cake” not being kēku (ケーク), rajio (ラジオ) “radio” not being reidio (レイディオ) and kariforunia (カリフォルニア) “California” nor being kyarifōnia (キャリフォーニア). That is because these words are relatively old borrowings that came to Japan before the conversion rules became consistent.

Older loanwords are often the way they are for customary reasons — you’ll need to remember how to spell them in katakana.

As you might’ve noticed, a part of this reason is the no-use of combination katakana. Sounds that we traditionally didn’t have or uncommon sounds in Japanese were replaced with ones easier to pronounce and recognize for Japanese speakers. So if they were borrowed today, they would be katakanized differently — like レイディオ. However, many of them remain the same despite the change as we are already used to the way they are! That means, older loanwords are often the way they are for customary reasons — you’ll need to remember how to spell them in katakana.

Katakanize Like a Pro

Katakanization can be a challenge for native-English-speaking learners, even those who are already fluent in Japanese. However, don’t forget learning how to katakanize will not only help you better acclimate to Japanese phonology and improve your overall pronunciation, but also make your spoken Japanese more comprehensible and approachable. And if you look at it from a different perspective — being an English speaker can also be an advantage in Japanese learning if you know how katakanization works. When you start being able to convert English words to katakana smoothly, and recognize more katakana words that Japanese speakers use, you would be surprised how many words you know already!

I hope the three basic rules and extra tips help you build a good foundation for katakana conversion. It is a highly practical skill and potentially a game changer to bring your Japanese to the next level. So, keep katakanizing and keep learning — Guddo rakku!