 |
Katakana and Writing Your Name
Katakana is one of the two Japanese syllabaries, Hiragana being the other, that along with Kanji make up the Japanese writing system. Originally simple and shorthand versions of Kanji, each of the 46 symbols has it's own syllable sound rather than a meaning. In modern Japanese writing, the main purpose of Katakana is to write Japanese pronunciations of foreign words including names, animals, and phrases. Its other common use is for scientific words. Besides those two, it's used for emphasizing certain words, even if they are native to Japanese. It's pretty common to see signs or advertisements in Katakana instead of hiragana, just to draw attention to it. When foreigners want to write their name in Japanese, katakana is the best way to do it. It's a little tough to do if you don't have any background with Japanese sounds, but not impossible. Basically you want to turn your name so that it fits into the Japanese writing system. So for a name like "Liz", where there's no "z only" sound in Japanese, it would change to "Li-zu" and would be written in katakana. Other names like "Lee" and "Danny" are easier and would be written "Ri--" and "Dani" respectively. The way to lengthen a sound for a name like "Lee" is to draw a horizontal or vertical (depending on which way you're writing) line after the syllable you want lengthened. For more information on Japanese pronunciation check out this link. Come back soon for images and more information Return From Katakana to Japanese Language
|
