Katakana Literary Work (Final)

Advertisement for “コーヒーカップ”

This is an advertisement for my own cup. 

It is meant to be parodic, by the way.

--

ラッテ：Latte.

カプチーノ：Cappuccino.

ミルク：milk. Here I used Katakana instead of 牛乳／ぎゅうにゅう in order to be consistent with the previous lines and also to make the advertisement look more "fashionable".

エンジヨイ：enjoy. Using this English word in Katakana is also to make the advertisement look more "fashionable".

コーヒーカップ：Coffee Cup. This should be the name of the cup.

クリック：click。Using Katakana is to draw your attention to click here.

自己紹介２

私は中国人です。家族はペキンにいます。ペキンに万里の長城と天安門があります。この夏、私は万里の長城へいきました。ひとがたくさんいましたから、にぎやかでした。でも、てんきはよかったですから、とてもきれいでした。

きょねんのなつ、わたしはいぬがほしいでした、かわいでしたから。それから、ははといっしょにペットショップへいぬをかいにいきました。わたしたちはサモエドをひとつかいました。いぬのなまえは“いぬブラザー”でした。はじめで、まいにちにたべものをさんかいフィードしました。それから、わたしはいそがしかったです。うちがいませんでしたから、まいにちいかいだけフェードしました。いぬブラザーはうちでたくさんはいべんしましたから、うちはぜんぜんきれいじゃありませんでした。ついにはははいぬブラザーをほかのひとにあげました。ざんねんでしたね。

わたしはおんがくがとてもすきです。ピアノとドラムをします。ドラムのほうがピアノよりとくいです、そしてドラムのほうがすきです。だいがくでピアノをれんしゅうしたいですが、いつもいそがしいですか、れんしゅうはとてもすくないです。

ふゆやすみに中国へかえりません。アメリカにりょこしたいです。どこへいきたいですか。わかりません。アドバイスをおねがいします！

Katakana Analysis (Final)

      The use of Katakana as a representation of foreign words is quite common and straightforward. However, there are some Japan-originated words that are written in Katakana. Here we are mainly going to discuss how Katakana is sometimes used to represent words that should have been written in Hiragana or Kanji.

      The first sample is from a manga magazine called "Jump", which is well advertized in the anime Gintama. In the sample the word "manga", which is usually "漫画" in Kanji, is instead written in Katakana.  Tatsumi Sensei mentioned that many young Japanese people use borrowed words in daily life even though some words exists in traditional Japanese because they think it is fashionable and fun. Therefore, it is very reasonable to think that they use Katakana here to represent the English word "manga" (which probably comes from the Japanese word) in order to give the advertisement a modern and fashionable feeling. 

      The second sample is the cover of a book that talks about the surprising difference between Japanese people in the western part and those in the eastern part. On the top, the word "びっくり", meaning "surprise", is also written in Katakana. From its pronunciation we can easily tell that this is not an English word. In fact, it is a Japanese word and is written as "吃驚" in Kanji. 

In the corner of the advertisement, the word "こちら", meaning "here", is also written in Katakana. The reason of using Katakana here becomes obvious when we notice the exclamation mark right after the word. Katakana here might play a role similar to the all-capital-letter word "SURPRISE!" Writing this ビックリ in Katakana can to some extent reinforce the exclamative tone.  Furthermore, writing the word in Katakana makes it stand out among other words in Kanji and hiragana and really gives the reader some surprise. A similar example of this is in the corner of the first sample. "コチラ" is like "HERE!" in English, making itself more eye-catchy.

      The third sample is on the label of a facial cleanser. On the top of this label, there is "ニキビ", written as "面皰" in Kanji and meaning "pimple" or "acne".  Instead of making the word more fashionable or more eye-catchy, the usage of Katakana here seems to make the word more subtle. Acne and pimple are often considered ugly and dirty. Kanji often has a very strong visualizing effect, since each Kanji is closely linked to a specific object, which can be easily visualized when the Kanji is processed by the brain. Therefore, instead of writing the word in Kanji, which gives people a straightforward feeling of "facial defect", writing it in Katakana make the reader feel like the producers are whispering the word to the customers and trying not to embarrass them. In this way, using Katakana here makes the label more subtle and polite. Another reason for using Katakana rather than Kanji here is that Kanji is too formally scientific for a label of a product. Googling "ニキビ" and "面皰", I found that "ニキビ" is more often used in daily life on like tips of cleaning acnes or advertisements for such products, while "面皰" appears more in professional articles, including wikipedia and articles discussing medical treatments on acnes. Our TA Aoki-san says she has seldom seen "ニキビ" written in Kanji. Probably Katakana is just the common and natural way to write it.

      In the three examples above, we see different functions Katakana has in changing the tones under different circumstances: to make the word look fashionable and modern, to express exclamation, and to make words more subtle, polite, and easy for everyday use.

      Aside from representing loanwords and sounds, the handout sensei gave us only mentioned the function of Katakana to represent the words the writer wishes to emphasize, examples of which are the “コチラ” in the first example and the “ビックリ” in the second. The textbooks did not mention that Katakana is also used to express special feelings or manners of speaking or just to look fashionable. I believe the reason for the textbooks not doing this is that the functions of Katakana in the samples above might be very arbitrary and specific, and their usage varies among different writers. Therefore, it is harder generalize these uses into one or two rules. There should be a lot more ways of using Katakana, but we could probably only learn them by really speaking and using Japanese in our daily life.

Katakana Analysis (Draft)

    The use of Katakana as a representation of foreign words is quite common and straightforward. However, there are some Japan-originated words that are written in Katakana. Here we are mainly going to discuss how Katakana is sometimes used to represent words that should have been written in Hiragana or Kanji.

    The first sample is from a manga magazine called "Jump", which is well advertized in the anime Gintama. In the sample the word "manga", which is usually "漫画" in Kanji, is instead written in Katakana.  Tatsumi Sensei mentioned that many young Japanese people use borrowed words in daily life even though some words exists in traditional Japanese because they think it is fashionable and fun. Therefore, it is very reasonable to think that they use Katakana here to represent the English word "manga" (which probably comes from the Japanese word) in order to give the advertisement a modern and fashionable feeling. 

        The second sample is the cover of a book that talks about the surprising difference between Japanese people in the western part and those in the eastern part. On the top, the word "びっくり", meaning "surprise", is also written in Katakana. From its pronunciation we can easily tell that this is not an English word. In fact, it is a Japanese word and is written as "吃驚" in Kanji. 
In the corner of the advertisement, the word "こちら", meaning "here", is also written in Katakana. The reason of using Katakana here becomes obvious when we notice the exclamation mark right after the word. Katakana here might simply play a role similar to the all-capital-letter word "SURPRISE!" Writing this ビックリ in Katakana can to some extent reinforce the exclamative tone as well as the feeling of "surprise" itself. A similar example of this is in the corner of the first sample. "コチラ" is like "HERE!" in English, making itself more eye-catchy.

        The third sample is on the label of a facial cleanser. On the top of this label, there is "ニキビ", written as "面皰" in Kanji and meaning "pimple" or "acne".  Instead of making the word more fashionable or more eye-catchy, the usage of Katakana here seems to make the word more subtle. Acne and pimple are often considered ugly and dirty. Therefore, instead of writing the word in Kanji, which gives people a straightforward feeling of "facial defect", writing it in Katakana make the reader feel like the producers are whispering the word to the customers and trying not to embarrass them. In this way, using Katakana here makes the label more subtle and polite.

    In the three examples above, we see different functions Katakana has in changing the tones under different circumstances:  to make the word look fashionable and modern, to strengthen the exclamation, and to make words more subtle and polite.

      Aside from representing loanwords and sounds, the handout sensei gave us only mentioned the function of Katakana to represent the words the writer wishes to emphasize, examples of which are the “コチラ” in the first example and the “ビックリ” in the second. The textbooks did not mention that Katakana is also used to express special feelings or manners of speaking or just to look fashionable. I believe the reason for the textbooks not doing this is that the functions of Katakana in the samples above might be very arbitrary and specific and therefore harder to be generalized into one or two rules. There should be a lot more ways of using Katakana that we could only learn by really speaking and using Japanese in our daily life.

Katakana Samples

    As known to us all, the main usage of Katakana is to represent foreign words and names, like テレビ(television) and カメラ(camera). Such usage needs little categorization. However, there are some Japan-originated words that are written in Katakana. Here in this article we are going to look into three examples of such words and analyze why they are in Katakana.

1. 

    This is a picture found on a manga website where it looks like that they are advertising their new magazine. Notice that on the right side written in yellow there is "manga" in Katakana （マンガ）. Manga, written as “漫画” in Kanji, is apparently not a foreign word. 

    Tatsumi Sensei mentioned that many young Japanese people use borrowed words in daily life even though some words exists in traditional Japanese because they think it is fashionable and fun. Therefore, it is very reasonable to think that they use Katakana here to represent the English word "manga" (which probably comes from the Japanese word) in order to give the advertisement a modern and fashionable feeling.

2.

    This is a picture of the cover of a book, which seems to talk about the big difference between Japanese people in the western part and those in the eastern part. On the top there is "ビックリ" (meaning "surprise" in English) written in Katakana. This ビックリis by no means a borrowed word. In fact, it is more often written in Hiragana and written as "吃驚" in Kanji, which indicates that it is a native Japanese word.

      The reason of using Katakana here seems obvious when we notice the exclamation mark right after the word. Katakana here might play a role similar to the all-capital-letter word "SURPRISE!" Writing this in Katakana can to some extent reinforce the exclamative tone as well as the feeling of "surprise" itself.

      Another similar example "コチラ" can be found in the right-bottom of the first picture.

3.

     This third example is very different from the first and is just the opposite of the second one. On the top of the label of this facial cleanser, there is “ニキビ”, which means "pimple" or "acne". To no one's surprise, this word is also a native Japanese word, written as "面皰" in Kanji. 

      Instead of making exclamations, the usage of Katakana here seems to make the word more subtle. Acne and pimple are often considered ugly and not clean. Therefore, instead of writing the word in Kanji, which gives people a straightforward feeling of "facial defect", writing it in Katakana feels like  the producers are whispering the word to the customers and trying not to embarrass them. Therefore, using Katakana here makes the label more subtle and polite.

Why I chose to learn Japanese

My favorite part about Japanese is how it sounds. It sounds very emotional no matter what the content is.  Unlike Chinese, which is almost always slow and smooth and sometimes lazy, Japanese is active and exciting. I guess that is part of the reason why Japanese anime is so popular all around the world. 

Oh and I like this blog. Here I can change fonts. Change color.
And write whatever this is the way I like to.
And even type Japanese!
ひらがなとカタカナと漢字

すごい！