As a supplement to the Kana Sounds App I decided that it was probably a good idea to put some real world examples of how both Hiragana and Katakana are used. What I will do is take a picture of interesting examples of Kana being used in real life here in Japan. I hope you will find this interesting and a help with your studies!
The first example here is from Fukuoka Magazine. You will notice that there is Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana on the main headline. With this picture we will ignore everything except for the Katakana. It says カラだ or “ka” “ra” “da” if you sound it out. “Karada” is a Japanese word that is usually written in Kanji or Hiragana, and it means “Body” as in your body.
Now you must be saying “TIME OUT”!! Katakana is supposed to be for borrowed words from other languages!! Why are they doing this? Why are they trying to confuse me? Well there are probably several reasons for this:
- It looks cool
- Artistic balance
- It’s a headline so they are trying to attract attention
- If they used Hiragana it would blend in with the particles
- They are trying to confuse the gaijin studying Japanese (Joking)
Unfortunately, this type of thing happens all the time, so you just have to get used to it. It is going to confuse the hell out of you, especially when you are a beginner. Hell I’m sure it confuses some Japanese people too!
