Unit on Writing in Japanese

ELED6803

UNIT: WRITING FOREIGN ORIGIN JAPANESE WORDS IN KATAKANA

Fumiko Kobayashi

Arkansas Tech University

Fall, 2004.

Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………….……...3

Goals………………………………………………………….……….5

Objectives………………………………………………………..……6

Learning Activities (four-step exercises)

Step1………………………………………………………..8

Step 2……………………………………………………...10

Step 3……………………………………………………...12

Step 4……………………………………………………...24

Post-test………………………………………………………………33

Evaluation……………………………………………………………36

Introduction:

Japanese is one of the unique languages unlike any other European language such as German, Spanish, French, or Italian for English-speaking learners. It is not only the differences of language structure between Japanese and English but also its complicated writing system that makes Japanese hard to learn for English-speaking learners. There are three kinds of Japanese written letters or characters used in Japan: Kanji, Katakana and Hiragana.

Kanji: Ideographic and pictographic characters borrowed from the Chinese.

　Katakana and Hiragana: Strictly phonetic symbols. Each symbol represents a certain syllable of sound without respect to meaning.

Japanese is written in Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana, combined. Katakana is used for; (1) foreign origin words include foreign personal names, place names, plants names, animals name and other proper nouns, (2) onomatopoeia (and sometimes mimesis), (3) emphasis of a particular word, (4) telegrams.

One problem for English-speaking learners is the writing of foreign origin Japanese words. English-speaking learners may, on the other hand, be drawn into too close an approximation of the word’s original pronunciations or, on the other hand, may be uncertain as to how to express in Katakana a sound which does not exist in Japanese.

The writing of words of foreign origin has been limited so as to focus on the major problem of English-speaking learners, namely, long vowel sounds and double consonant sounds. Since the majority of foreign words in Japanese have come from English, most of examples and exercises given are English. The sounds of foreign languages can not be transliterated accurately on Japanese because written Japanese does not have symbols for sounds not contained in the spoken language. Thus the sounds of foreign origin words can not be presented faithfully in written Japanese. Such words are interpreted within the Japanese phonetic symbols and given Japanese pronunciation, which can then be written in Katakana. The following example sounds are not contained in Japanese; they are frequently represented by such Katakana as the ones in parentheses:

th (サ, シ, ス, セ, ソ)

ti (チ; sometimes written ティ to approximate the original sound more closely)

di (ジ; sometimes written ディ to approximate the original sound more closely)

This is a unit for the English-speaking students in Beginning Japanese class in the American college. The students for this unit have mastered writing and sounds of each Katakana. The exercises in this unit focus on a number of sounds that English-speaking learners find particularly troublesome to write.

Goals:

After four-step exercises, students will enable to write their own name, western famous people’s name, countries’ and cities’ name, and other foreign origin words which sounds are not contained in Japanese in Katakana with 80% accuracy.

Objectives:

Objective #1. CVCV pattern

Through the exercises the students will understand the writing rules of words having a CVCV pattern and will write the words in Katakana with 90% accuracy.

Objective #2.　Two or more consonant sounds in succession

Through the exercises the students will understand the writing rules of words containing two or more consonant sounds in succession and will write the words in Katakana with 90% accuracy.

Objective #3 Long sounds

Through the exercises the students will understand the writing rules of words containing long sounds and will write the words in Katakana with 90% accuracy.

Objective #4 Consonant clusters

Through the exercises the students will understand the writing rules of words containing consonant clusters and will write the words in Katakana with 90% accuracy.

Learning Activities (four-step exercises)