We’ve checked the pronunciation and the letters of all katakana, so let’s have a quick look at its history and usage in this article.
the History of Katakana（カタカナ）
Katakana was created from kanji and it’s considered to be created in early 9th century by scholar priests. They read and learned things written in Chinese and developed katakana to read them in Japanese. At first, there were several forms of katakana, but around 12th century, people standardized katakana almost the same as the katakana today.
the Usage of カタカナ
In Japan, people usually write with kanji and hiragana, and the usage of katakana is more limited than other two. According to Wikipedia, some important usages of katakana are to write the things like;
- words from foreign countries e.g.) パン(bread), パソコン( personal computer)
- proper nouns from foreign countries except for the kanji- using countries like China, Taiwan, etc. e.g.) カナダ(Canada), フランス(France)
- onomatopoeic and mimetic words e.g.) パタパタ(pitter-patter), キラキラ(sparklingly, brightly, etc.)
Japanese is a unique language because they use 3 different types of letters and that makes learning Japanese difficult for the learners. But in terms of katakana and hiragana, if you once understand the letters, it’s really easy to write them. Just to practice and memorize. Katakana and hiragana are just Japanese alphabets!
