Okay, lets talk about Katakana!
For one of my Katakana sources, I brought Final Fantasy IV, one of the best in the series for those who know (Melissa maybe?). There's a lot of talk about crystals in the game, and whenever they're mentioned, the game writes it as クリストル. I tried to see if there was a word for crystal in Japanese and as far as I can tell, there is. Writing it in katakana doesn't really put any emphasis on the word in this case and it doesn't have to be a loan word so I was a little confused. Then I realized everything in the game was written in hiragana and katakana. No kanji. I'm not sure why this was done, maybe to save space in the original game cart. Anyway I can only assume that since the correct way to spell crystal in Japanese requires kanji, Squaresoft (the company who made the game) decided to use katakana so the word wouldn't look misspelled.
Yuxi brought song lyrics to class which included the words シアクセ （Happiness), and イイヒト (good person). I believe both words can be written in Hiragana. But when people express their emotions in songs. Considering both of these words are things that could be expressed with emphasis, I guess writing them in Katakana makes the emotions in the song a little stronger. It's a little weird though, because it's impossible to tell how something is written when you're only listening to it. I don't know the song though. I guess the emotions would be apparent in the way it's being sung. If that's true, then the Katakana is probably there to make the written form match the way the song sounds.
さとうせんせい told us Japanese was one of the hardest languages for native English speakers to learn. I guess every textbook has it's own approach to teaching it. I saw one that only used loan words for nouns in the first two chapters. This kind of book would have to give a pretty in depth description of katakana early on. Our book doesn't make a very big deal about the katakana, probably because most of it is in hiragana and kanji. I guess it all depends on how much the textbook intends to use katakana while teaching Japanese.
27 October 2009
Katakana Analysis
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
It really is amazing when people decide to use Katakana. It clearly is something big in Japanese, and I didn't really consider how often this book avoided discussing it. Japanese is definitely a hard language, but it's these precise issues that make it fun as well. じゃまたあした。
Wow, I'm so surprised reading everyone's analyses! It's really cool that there's so many different ways of using katakana. Songs and games...who would have thought? But I think you're right about using the katakana in the game, and it makes sense that the makers wouldn't want to take up so much space inserting kanji!
You bring up an interesting point about the song lyrics in katakana that are not even primarily meant to be read but instead heard. I think it actually relates strongly to your next comment, the fact that Japanese is very hard for native English speakers to learn. As you correctly point out, many textbooks don't go much more in depth about katakana usage beyond onomatopoeia and loan words while your song lyrics and game show that katakana usage is hardly limited to just those two categories. My personal impression has been that katakana usage is best picked up through experience and engagement with the language. The song lyrics, for example, are an example of a Japanese text written on probably meant for Japanese speakers, implying that even though the words are really meant to be heard it is still natural in some way for Japanese speakers to use katakana to express certain words. Engagement and experience is the only way I can think of to learn these kinds of usages.
I also wonder about the fact that both your sources seem to be geared towards young people. Do you think katakana words are trendier than Japanese words? I've also noticed a lot of katakana in games and have thought that perhaps using katakana in popular games meant for export makes a strong claim on how the word should be translated.
こんにちは。
日本語科のTAです。
It is true that some words in lyrics are in Katakana even though they are not foreign words.
Also, I find that some singers use more Katakana than the others.
I wonder what kind of message they are trying to send by using a lot of Katakana.
Sanaa might be right about the material being geared towards younger people. I haven't seen enough Japanese entertainment material to notice a trend, but I have heard that Katakana is more popular among younger people. I'd be interested in finding out if there's any relationship between the singers who use more Katakana, and the kinds of music they perform. Maybe Katakana shows up more in music geared towards younger people.
Post a Comment