As noted above, katakana is used mainly for words imported from foreign languages. The words are a lot of imports originating from English. Katakana can also be used to emphasize certain words as the use of bold. To use a more complete list, you can see the Wikipedia article about katakana in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana#Usage
Katakana represents sounds the same as hiragana, but of course all the letters are different.
Because the foreign language words must be forced to follow a combination of consonant + vowel Japanese, many are experiencing a radical change to the extent that the speaker can not realize the original language with ease. As a result, the use of katakana is very difficult for English speakers, because they prejudiced the words of the English language sound like ... English. So, it's better to forget the original English words and treat the words as the word imports Japanese. If not, you can have a habit of saying it with the pronunciation of English (and Japanese people do not necessarily understand it).
| Table Katakana | |||||||||||
| n | w | r | y | m | h | n | t | s | k | | |
| ン (n) | ワ | ラ | ヤ | マ | ハ | ナ | タ | サ | カ | ア | a |
| | ヰ* | リ | | ミ | ヒ | ニ | チ (chi) | シ (shi) | キ | イ | i |
| | | ル | ユ | ム | フ (fu) | ヌ | ツ (tsu) | ス | ク | ウ | u |
| | ヱ* | レ | | メ | ヘ | ネ | テ | セ | ケ | エ | e |
| | ヲ | ロ | ヨ | モ | ホ | ノ | ト | ソ | コ | オ | o |
* = Obsolete or rarely used
Katakana is much more difficult to master than the hiragana because it is used only for certain words, so the opportunity to practice reading it less often.
Then, because the Japanese do not have the space, sometimes the symbol "·" is used to indicate word boundaries such as the "ロック アンド ロール" (rock and roll). Use of the symbol is not absolute, so it is sometimes not used to replace any spaces in the original term.
Note
1. All sound the same as the hiragana.
2. Four letters "シ", "ン", "ツ", and "ソ" very similar to each other. Basically, the difference is that the first two letters are more "horizontal" than the last two letters. The line drawn little more flat and arch length is drawn from bottom to top. Two recent letters have a small line that is almost vertical and arch length is drawn from top to bottom. These letters are hard to distinguish sehinggan takes patience and lots of practice.
3. You also need to be careful with "ノ", "メ", and "ヌ", also "フ", "ワ", and "ウ". Yes, they are similar-similar and unfortunately we can not do anything.
4. Sometimes "·" is used to replace spaces in the original language.
Long vowel sounds
In katakana, long vowels became very simple. You do not need to think where letters should be used to extend the vowel sound, as all long vowel sounds represented by this long line: ー.
Note
1. All the long vowel sound in katakana denoted by lines. For example, the "cute" (cute) on the said written "キュート".
"ア, イ, ウ, エ, オ" small
Because of the limitations of the voices hiragana, the developments made some new combinations to create sounds that did not originally exist in Japanese. The most notable is the absence of sound "ti", "the", "tu", and "du" (for which there is "chi", "ji", "tsu", and "dzu") along with the sound "f" except "ふ". Consonant "sh", "j", and "ch" also does not have the combination with the vowel "e". To overcome this, the decision is to add a small version of the five vowel sounds. Small letters can also be combined with a consonant sound "w" to replace the letters that have been outdated. In addition, "ウ" can be dakuten so it becomes "ヴ" which can be combined with "ア, イ, エ, オ" small to make a syllable with the consonant "v". But the sound of "v" is not widely used, perhaps because Japanese people are still hard to pronounce "v" and prefer to approach it with the sound "b". For example, the "volume" in Japanese is written as "ボリューム" (boryuumu), using the sound "b" instead of "v". "Violin" can be written either "バイオリン" (baiorin) and "ヴァイオリン" (vaiorin), and no matter use which because ultimately most people will read any Japanese with the sound "b". In the following table, the sounds which was not there highlighted. Other existing voice used as necessary.
| additional voice | ||||||||
| v | w | f | ch | d | t | j | sh | |
| ヴァ | ワ | ファ | チャ | ダ | タ | ジャ | シャ | a |
| ヴィ | ウィ | フィ | チ | ディ | ティ | ジ | シ | i |
| ヴ | ウ | フ | チュ | ドゥ | トゥ | ジュ | シュ | u |
| ヴェ | ウェ | フェ | チェ | デ | テ | ジェ | シェ | e |
| ヴォ | ウォ | フォ | チョ | ド | ト | ジョ | ショ | o |
Note
1. Note that there is no sound "wu". For example, the katakana for "woman" (woman) is "ウーマン" (uuman).
2. Although the sound "tu" (as in "body") can be made with "トゥ", before the combination is no use "ツ" (tsu) to approximate the sound. After the combination of "トゥ" is made, the words are already using "ツ" do not change. Examples are "tools" (tools) which was written "ツール" (tsuuru) and the "tour" (a tour) which was written "ツアー" (tsuaa).
3. In ancient times, with no new voices are often no choice but to take the letters of the table regardless of the actual pronunciation. In ancient buildings, you may still see "ビルヂング" (birujingu) and not the modern spelling "ビルディング" (birudingu). Incidentally, this is a case that occurred in the Shin-Maru building across from Tokyo station where I work. Ironically, the first letter Shin-Maru (新 丸) means "new".
Some examples of words using katakana
Changing English words into Japanese is a skill that requires considerable practice and luck. To introduce you how English words dijepangkan, here are some examples of words in katakana. Sometimes words are not katakananya correct English word or meaning is different from English. Of course, not all katakana words derived from English.
| Examples of katakana words | | |
| English | Japanese | pronunciation |
| America (Amerika) | アメリカ | Amerika |
| Russia (Rusia) | ロシア | Roshia |
| India | インド | Indo |
| Indonesia | インドネシア | Indoneshia |
| cheating (curang) | カンニング (cunning) | Kan'ningu (cunning) |
| tour (tur) | ツアー | Tsuā |
| company employee (pegawai kantoran) | サラリーマン (salary man) | Sararīman (salary man) |
| Mozart | モーツァルト | Mōtsu~aruto |
| car horn (klakson) | クラクション (klaxon) | Kurakushon (klaxon) |
| sofa | ソファ or ソファー | Sofa or sofā |
| Halloween | ハロウィーン | Harou~īn |
| French fries (kentang goreng) | フライドポテト (fried potato) | Furaidopoteto (fried potato) |
see you next session
**続けて**
