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Why is "ikemen" written in katakana? 2008/4/13 04:09
I was watching Hana Kimi, and I noticed that ikemen paradise was written in katakana. Foreign words are written in katakana, aren't they? Is ikemen not a word of Japanese origin?
by Bella Sophia  

Ikemen 2008/4/13 12:08
Bella,

There is no rule that says Japanese words have to be written in kanji or hiragana, and it is common for slangish terms to be written in katakana (e.g. ケータイ instead of 携帯).
In the case of "ikemen", it comes from "イケてる" + "メンズ", which were/are both written in katakana anyway.
by Dave in Saitama rate this post as useful

...? 2008/4/13 12:14
Ooooh, well that doesn't make any sense. I was always taught that words of Japanese origin are always written in hiragana and kanji... and that Katakana was used for foreign words and sound effect-type words.
by Bella Sophia rate this post as useful

Katakana 2008/4/13 12:17
Bella,

I was always taught that words of Japanese origin are always written in hiragana and kanji... and that Katakana was used for foreign words and sound effect-type words.

Well, that it is a good general rule for people just starting out learning Japanese, but as you have found out, it is not always true.
by Dave in Saitama rate this post as useful

oh... 2008/4/13 12:20
Ah, well now I'm confused. And, I always wondered why "namaiki" was spelled in katakana when I searched up the lyrics. When I asked my sensei, she simply said, "It's suppoed to be written in kanji, not katakana." This is confusing now.
by Bella Sophia rate this post as useful

Katakana used for many words 2008/4/13 12:58
Bella, as Dave says you were taught a very simplified version of the rules. I was also taught that at school but found out that was not the whole truth when I got to Japan.

I Googled "Katakana usage" and found this on Wikipedia-


"Technical and scientific terms, such as the names of animal and plant species and minerals, are also commonly written in katakana.
Katakana are also often, but not always, used for transcription of Japanese company names. For example Suzuki is written スズキ, and Toyota is written トヨタ. Katakana are also used for emphasis, especially on signs, advertisements, and hoardings (i.e., billboards). For example, it is common to see ココ koko ("here"), ゴミ gomi ("trash") or メガネ megane ("glasses"), and words to be emphasized in a sentence are also sometimes written in katakana, mirroring the European usage of italics."

So you can see there are many uses of katakana, and one of them is to emphasise words, like italics in English. Namaiki would usually be written in kanji, yes, but if a native speaker wants to write it in katakana for emphasis, they can.

Starting to make sense now? Languages often do not stick to hard and fast rules anyway.
by Sira rate this post as useful

Language learning 2008/4/13 12:58
Bella,

There is no need to be confused. You just need to understand that many of the "rules" you learn early on are actually not hard-and-fast rules, so you will come across many exceptions when you come into contact with Japanese as it used in real life - as opposed to textbooks.
by Dave in Saitama rate this post as useful

thanks! 2008/4/13 13:08
Ok, thank you both! I'm no-longer confused.
by Bella Sophia rate this post as useful

similar to italics 2008/4/13 13:12
I always had thought that ike-men was short for "イケてる面 (good-looking face)".

But as a native Japanese who majored in Japanese literature and professionally writes Japanese articles, I support Dave and Sira on the usages of katakana. I think you can consider katakana very similar to italics.
by Uco rate this post as useful

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