42
votes
Accepted
Why is the term オナニー written in katakana?
More specifically, オナニー is from German Onanie. Interestingly, German apparently borrowed the term from older English onania (per Duden's etymology here), which in turn was a derivation of the name ...
- 35.8k
38
votes
Accepted
= sign in a katakana name
It's a double hyphen, not an equals sign.
One of its uses is when transliterating names that have a hyphen in them. This is to avoid confusion with the extended sound symbol (ー) in Japanese. For ...
- 8,425
35
votes
Accepted
Why is the word オタク written in katakana?
In this case, katakana is used to indicate オタク is used not in its original sense but in its derivative sense. おたく was (and still is) an honorific expression used to refer to someone's family. So オタク ...
- 292k
28
votes
Accepted
Why is this written in katakana instead of hiragana?
の in traditional proper nouns are commonly written in katakana.
壇ノ浦
三ノ宮駅
鬼ノ城
沖ノ鳥島
Practically, this can help people notice that this の is part of the proper noun and not the ordinary particle.
...
- 292k
25
votes
Why were hiragana and katakana never merged into one system?
“What’s up with upper case and lower case? We have two different forms for each letter, sometimes similar, sometimes completely different. Why weren’t these merged to make it easier to learn to write?”...
- 35.8k
24
votes
Accepted
How to pronounce the English alphabet? (A, B, C, ...)
I share your experience. Sticking straight to the katakana pronunciation below, I have never had the problem of someone not understanding me any more. I believe this is the pronunciation currently ...
- 47.8k
23
votes
Why does 'アプリストア’ mean appstore?
The word application in Japanese is 「アプリケーション」. The shortened form (akin to app) is 「アプリ」, rather than just 「アップ」 as one might expect coming from English.
Therefore the word for app store is, as you'd ...
- 495
20
votes
Do Japanese actually pronounce the "v" sound?
I think on reading ヴァ, ヴィ, etc., people usually try to pronounce it differently from バ, ビ, etc., but with varying success. In fact, I think most Japanese that try to distinguish ヴァ and バ pronounce ...
- 47.8k
19
votes
Accepted
Why did の disappear from 山手, but in 御茶ノ水 it's in katakana?
According to Wikipedia, the correct name of “山手線” is “やまのてせん.” In the application form of business license submitted by The National Railway (then 日本国有鉄道) to the government before the start of ...
- 9,485
18
votes
Accepted
Why is Toyota typically written in Katakana? (トヨタ)
It's a matter of stylistic choice which is hard to explain logically. It's kind of like asking why many Western companies adopted lowercase logos these days, which apparently look "grammatically wrong"...
- 292k
18
votes
Accepted
Is there a particular name for the rows and columns of the hiragana/katakana charts?
The columns (or rows) that have the same initial consonant are labeled as the first item in that column (consonant + a) followed by [行]{ぎょう}. Examples of such are あ行, か行, さ行, た行, etc.
The rows (or ...
- 8,025
18
votes
Accepted
Which language レシート is adapted from?
Derivation of レシート
Numerous dictionaries state that レシート is from English receipt. See, for instance, the Dajisen and Daijirin entries visible here at Kotobank (in Japanese), or here at Wiktionary (...
- 35.8k
17
votes
Why is "Wikipedia" written as ウィキペディア instead of ワィキペディア?
ウィ is the standard way of transcribing [wi] or [wɪ]. Similarly ウェ is used for [wɛ] (for example website → ウェブサイト) and ウォ for [wɒ] or [wɔ] (for example wombat → ウォンバット or walkman ウォークマン).
Here ウ is ...
- 47.8k
16
votes
Why Can't A Name Be Written Literally In Japanese?
Basically, there are just some sounds that exist in other languages which cannot easily be phonemically represented in Japanese.
Disclaimer - this is a simplified answer, but ...
As with any ...
- 11.5k
16
votes
Why do textbooks and other sources pretend special katakana don't exist?
ウェ, ティ and so on are collectively called extended katakana. As you can see in the link, the full list of extended katakana is fairly long, to the point where it's not suitable for beginners. ...
- 292k
14
votes
What does "fūtsu" mean?
This is either a typo or a "reado".
Trying to reconstruct the original sentence from your rōmaji version, I'm guessing it is
茂作の顔に息をフーッと吹きかけた
フーッと is listed in some dictionaries (e.g. ...
- 47.8k
14
votes
Accepted
Non-standard katakana (エナジー vs. エネルギー)
Basically what I know エナジー & エネルギー both are gairaigo words & interchangeable (shown up as alternative of each other in dictionary), but they have different origins.
1) エナジー originated from ...
- 589
14
votes
Accepted
What is the name of the writing that appears on the screen when watching television?
テロップ (from English telop) is the generic word for any type of superimposed text on TV, and it's understood by everyone. You can see many テロップ's in the image below, at the top, right, left and bottom ...
- 292k
12
votes
Difference between katakana so and n
You need to be careful on the start point and stroke inclination as you can see on the image above
・ソ so
・リ ri
・ン n
Btw, Marilyn Manson is written in Japanese katakana character as マリリン マンソン.
...
- 241
12
votes
Accepted
Does a small tsu double all consonants?
A small tsu (sokuon) geminates (doubles) the following consonant. In native vocabulary, only unvoiced consonants can be geminated. This includes the さ, た, か, and ぱ rows. A double n as in おんな is not ...
- 236
12
votes
Accepted
How can the well-known Tintin become タンタン in Japanese?
The タンタン rendering has a lot to do with the source French pronunciation, [[tɛ̃tɛ̃]]. The [[ɛ]] vowel in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the open-mid front unrounded vowel, halfway between [[a]]...
- 35.8k
12
votes
Accepted
Why using です in katakana?
The final part of a Japanese sentence is sometimes rendered in katakana for various reasons. Examples include:
ごめんネ
ひどいヨー
分かってマス！
美味しいデス
大丈夫かナ?
In fiction, this typically happens ...
- 292k
12
votes
How would you translate this? バタコチーズライス
As a fact-based answer, there is nothing much to say besides that コ here stands for コーン (corn). However, I'm pretty sure that the exact word form バタコチーズライス is chosen because it makes a reference to ...
- 49.9k
11
votes
Accepted
Why is this katakana not reversed?
Historical Background
According to the 歴史的{れきしてき}経緯{けいい} section of the 縦書{たてが}きと横書{よこが}き article on the Japanese Wikipedia, apparently in the late 1800s it wasn't altogether uncommon for printed ...
- 35.8k
11
votes
Accepted
Is this 8px height font understandable for japanese knowing people?
TLDR: Use at least a 9px font unless you want negative reviews.
This is 美咲フォント, isn't it? Actually, it's indeed 7px per glyph plus 1px padding :) I know this font, but didn't mention it in my previous ...
- 292k
11
votes
Why is the term オナニー written in katakana?
It's derived from the Biblical story of Onan, which would mean its origin is foreign.
- 10.7k
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