LinguaReading a word you have never seen
Katakana is the one script where you can meet a completely unknown word and still work out what it means, because most of them were borrowed from a language you may already know. The method is always the same: read every beat aloud, including the length dashes and the silent ッ, then say the whole thing quickly and let the original surface. テ-レ-ビ is a television, パ-ソ-コ-ン a personal computer, デ-パ-ー-ト a department store.
| Trap | What goes wrong |
|---|---|
| シ / ツ | read in the wrong direction, シャツ turns into nonsense |
| ソ / ン | パソコン becomes unreadable if the two swap |
| ー | dropping it turns beer into a building |
| デ / ア | デパート is a shop, アパート is a flat |
Three scripts on one line
A normal Japanese sentence uses all three at once, and each one signals what kind of word it is. Hiragana carries the grammar and the native words, katakana the borrowed ones, and kanji – which the next units begin – the content words that came from Chinese. Once you see that, a line of Japanese stops being a wall and becomes a pattern: the katakana blocks are almost always nouns.
テレビのニュースをみますI watch the news on television.
えきのデパートでシャツをかいますI buy a shirt at the department store by the station.
Words in this lesson
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| カメラ | camera | あたらしいカメラ a new camera |
| テレビ | television | テレビのニュース the news on television |
| パソコン | personal computer | しごとのパソコン a work computer |
| デパート | department store | えきのデパート the department store at the station |
| ボールペン | ballpoint pen | あおいボールペン a blue ballpoint pen |
| シャツ | shirt | しろいシャツ a white shirt |
| エレベーター | lift | エレベーターはあちらです The lift is over there. |
| ジュース | juice | りんごのジュース apple juice |
| チョコレート | chocolate | あまいチョコレート sweet chocolate |
| カレンダー | calendar | カレンダーをみます I look at the calendar. |
Exercises
This lesson has 10 exercises in the app:
- multiple choice: 3
- match the pairs: 1
- fill the gap: 2
- build the sentence: 2
- translate the sentence: 1
- listen and type: 1
Try the first one
Which spelling gives the word for a television set?
The answer, the other exercises, the audio and your progress are in the app – free at A0 and A1.