カタカナ！

 

こんにちは！

Hello!

Today I searched for things written カタカナ around my house. I didn't have to go farther than the Youtube app on my phone to find a Japanese music playlist. I love listening to Japanese lofi, rock, or indie music when I'm doing homework. 

The video at the top is titled 「ヨルシカのベストソング- ヨルシカメドレ」. ヨルシカ (Yorushika) is the name of the music duo who made the songs, so I think the title of the video translates to "Yorushika's best songs - Yorushika medley".

This morning, I had raspberries with breakfast, and I found "ラズベリー" and "メキシコ" on the container. Fruit names in Japanese are sometimes foreign loan words, so that's why "raspberry" is in katakana. Other katakana fruit names include キウイ (kiwi), バナナ (banana), and パイナップル (pineapple). These raspberries were apparently imported from メキシコ!

After breakfast, I started re-reading Fluent in 3 Months by Benny Lewis. I highlighted things with my Zebra マイルドライナー (Mildliner) highlighters. From some brief research, I found that Japanese company names--or in this case, products--are primarily written in katakana. Even Toyota can be written as "トヨタ".

This is a page from the manga adaptation of「ああかみこどもの雨と雪」(Wolf Children Ame and Yuki), an anime movie. It's an onomotopoeia that says "ドシャアアアン" and means "boom". In the story, the power went out after a boom from the storm.

Lastly, I looked through my The Art of My Neighbor Totoro book and found lots of katakana. 

This is a drawing of the movie's protagonists. Underneath is written "'サツキとメイ", which means "Satsuki and Mei." I couldn't find a conclusive reason as to why their names are in katakana, but it seems that many anime characters' names are written in katakana, or perhaps Satsuki's and Mei's names are actually foreign.

So, that was my katakana escapade. I've eaten raspberries and had those books for a while, so I was proud I can read the Japanese in them now. Next up is understanding what the Japanese I read means. It's a long road...

でも一生懸命勉強します！

でもいっしょけんめいべんきょうします！