set of characters used for foreign loan words, sound effects, slang, etc. absorbed into Japanese. The syllables they describe are the same as those of hiragana.
One of the four alphabets used in writing Japanese. Katakana is the syllabic alphabet generally used to write non-Japanese words or scientific terms (like animal or plant names). More angular than the other syllabic alphabet, hiragana.
One of the writing systems used in Japan. Used for foreign words or words with some sort of special emphasis.
From Ruby Annotation ( 2001-05-31) Japanese syllabic script, or character of that script. Angular in appearance. Subset of the Japanese writing system, used together with kanji and hiragana. In recent times, mainly used to write foreign words.
The Japanese phonetic alphabet used for foreign words, or for emphasis
Phonetic Japanese character set
One of three different Japanese writing systems. The characters in this system have many straight lines and corners and are mainly used for words of foreign origin. Read more about this in my translation notes.
One of two Japanese "alphabets". Katakana is used for words of foreign origin, technical terms, or for emphasis.
one of the 3 writing systems used in Japan. It represents the same phonetics as hiragana, but is used to represent foreign words, and is much squarer and blockier looking than hiragana.
the simplest form of Japanese phonetic writing ( kana), and the easiest to grasp for newcomers to the language. Usually used to write foreign words.
a simple, angular Japanese phonetic alphabet. Has the same sounds as hiragana, and resembles it to some degree, but the letters are (in general) much simpler. It's supposedly used to write foreign words in Japanese, or to emphasize certain words.
The second set of Japanese syllable-based alphabet. Although Hiragana is most widely used, Katakana is used when they write foreign words, names, sound effect words, and "made-up" Japanese words. Sometimes it's also used as a reading on a rather not too common Kanji character (not all Japanese are familiar with all of the Kanji, especially those that are rarely or no longer used on a daily basis). Examples of Katakana are: ア (a), カ (ka), サ (sa), タ (ta), ナ (na), etc. etc.
A Japanese phonetic syllabary used primarily for foreign names and place names and words of foreign origin. The symbols are angular, while those of Hiragana are cursive. Katakana is written left to right, or top to bottom. See Kanji.
A Japanese syllabic "alphabet" used to write foreign or unusual words, onamatopoetic sounds, and for emphasis (e.g., "Anthy" is spelled in katakana because her name is based on a Greek word).
One of the syllabic alphabets used in writing Japanese. Katakana is most commonly used for foreign words and names. See also hiragana and kana.
A more angular form of the hiragana syllabary, generally used to write foreign words.
Japanese writing system. Used for foreign words.
Phonetic alphabet for writing Nipponese; used for common documents, street signs, public notices, etc.
Phonetic script used mainly for writing foreign words in Japanese.
Straight-sided Japanese script usually used for foreign words.
One of the three common Japanese alphabets (see also Kanji and Hiragana). Katakana is made up of 48 symbols that represent syllables, and is mostly used for phonetically spelling words and names imported from foreign languages, such as Takushi (Taxi). Again, Katakana is not that hard to learn and can be pretty useful. Pronounced ‘kah-tah-kah-nah'.
Japanese written characters, a sub-type of Kana. Each character represents on syllable and has no meaning other than to represent a sound.
An angular, phonetic subscript of the Japanese writing system, with 50 syllables that represent all sounds of the Japanese language See also: Hiragana
one of three sets of written characters in Japanese, once used for men's writing, now used mostly for spelling foreign words in Japanese see also hiragana and kanji
A character set of symbols, used primarily to write foreign words phonetically, contained in one of the two common Japanese phonetic alphabets.
Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet. The word katakana means "fragmentary kana," as they are derived from components of more complex kanji.