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Kana!

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Oct 20th 2011 21:58
So, to get this straight: kanji is the main kana used, and hiragana is for pronunciation, katakana for loanwords???
KSDKK
Oct 20th 2011 22:05
Yes. We use katakana for loanwords. And sometimes, we use katakana for expression of unnatural speaking tone and mechanical tone. Like Soundwave in "Transformers"

sivvyx01
Oct 20th 2011 22:09
Oh ok, thanks!
HGL
Oct 20th 2011 22:25
Katakana is also used to express sounds. Dog's call is expressed as ワンワン, pronouned "wang wang", means in English "bowwow".
HGL
Oct 20th 2011 22:28
In addition, kanji is not a part of kana. Kana consists of hiragana and katakana only. Kanji is used in other Asian languages like Chinese and Korean.
Oct 20th 2011 22:30 sivvyx01
But we can use hiragana in a sentence with kanji? Can you give me an example of this?
Nadeshiko
Oct 20th 2011 22:32
In excerpts from a Japanese text book, "These are the three different types of letters used for writing Japanese. While they are all mixed in a Japanese sentence, katakana is normally used to indicate words of foreign origin, as well as names of places and people of other countries." So, we use all the three types of letters in writing.
e.g. 高橋さんはマリオさんに会いました。Mr. Takahashi met with Mario.
(Takahashi-san wa Mario-san ni aimashita.)
Oct 20th 2011 23:10 sivvyx01
so what is Hiragana mainly used for??
Oct 20th 2011 23:43 Nadeshiko
We basically use as many kanji as possible, which are widely used in general and seen in the japanese dictionary. Hiragana are mainly used for particles, sub-verbs and so on. So kanji, hiragana and sometimes katakana are definitely used in one sentence. You need to memorize which words are written in kanji or hiragana through the process of learning Japanese.
HGL
Oct 21st 2011 15:23
Hiragana can be used for everything, while kanji has small limitation (kanji cannnot be used for "fukujosi", etc).

Young kids with no knowledge of Japanese write sentences using hiragana only, but, it's not wrong Japanese.
Oct 21st 2011 15:26 HGL
Sorry, "young kids with no knowledge on kanji write sentences only using hiragana" was what I meant.
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So, to get this straight: kanji is the main kana used, and hiragana is for pronunciation, katakana for loanwords???


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