ザケンナヨ
I found this Katakana expression in a Japanese cartoon series about a restaurant that opens from 12 A.M. to 7 A.M. It was used by a yakuza member who was yelling at the restaurant owner. I was told that "ザケンナヨ" is a negative slang term meaning something along the lines of "Don't fool around!", thus I categorized the expression under slang. Although "ザケンナヨ" is a Japanese term and not trying to imitate a foreign word, it is still written in Katakana. Upon research I found that many Japanese slang terms are also expressed in Katakana. For example, キモイ is a Japanese slang term for cool. Perhaps it is because slang terms are relatively new Japanese expressions, they are expressed in Katakana.
キレイ
I was surprised to find that きれいな has a Katakana equivalent. Melissa from my Japanese class brought in clippings of a Japanese cartoon where they described the character who is made of bread as キレイパン. I learned that the word for beauty is commonly expressed in Katakana to draw attention. きれいな was expressed in Katakana to establish emphasis. Apparently, Katakana for beauty is frequently used by women's magazines for emphasis with sayings like ”メイビリンガキレイのヒモツ”.
As for textbooks, I found that their explanations for Katana usage were overall consistent with one another. They focused mainly on loan words, onomatopoeia and emphasis. I would imagine that they focused on these three categories because they are the main reasons for Katakana usage in Japanese. However, through collecting Katakana phrases, I learned there were more complex motives for Katakana use. One T.A. explained to me that sometimes Katakana is used because it is trendier, or more "fashionable," to express something in English. I also found that relatively new Japanese terms were expressed in Katakana instead of being written in hiragana and/or given a Japanese equivalent.
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Very cool finds of Katakana usage. It's really interesting to see when and where Katakana is used. That's very funny that it's more "fashionable" to express something in English!
ReplyDeleteええごはあまりおもしろくないです。This is why it is funny that Japan finds it so cool to write in English. Maybe we should pick up on your discovery that かたかな is used for slang and start saying English slang words in ひらがな！On a side note, those どりやき were to die for. どもありがとおざいます！！！
ReplyDeleteWhoa, that's really interesting that even though a slang word isn't necessarily a loan word, it's still written in katakana. Good find! Thanks for sharing that :)
ReplyDeletewow you raised up a theory ive never heard before! i like the slang one, it makes sense! maybe when they use katakana to express slang, they emphasis it's slang at the same time, just like they use katakana sometime even when there're good hiragana word only becuz katakana could easily be recognized among hiragana and kanji.^^
ReplyDeleteIf Katakana is becoming more popular and replacing Hiragana in a lot of places, I wonder if, eventually, it will replace Hiragana all together. I read somewhere that there used to be more Hiragana characters, but they were replaced. Maybe they're all on their way out?
ReplyDeleteHello! My name is Haruna. I'm a Bunkyo University's student in Japan. I'm a sophomore.
ReplyDeleteI'm very happy because you learn about Japanese very well. And your Japanese is good!! Don't be afraid making mistakes:)
So, I think using Katakana is very difficult. If I'm asked "Why do you use Katakana?", maybe I can't answer. So almost Japanese use Katakana unconsious.
But by using it, sentence's atmoshere change. This is my opinion, Katakana's shape is like square than Hiragana and Kannji.
So I think Katakana is versatile word.
こんにちは。
ReplyDelete日本語科のTAです。
Your observation is interesting.
ザケンナヨ is a relatively old expression... Do you have this cartoon series?
Is there any similar usages of foreign words in your native language or English?