I was looking up the orthography rules for katakana in Wikipedia when I came across the following puzzling little bit (which I've emphasized in bold below):

Quote:Katakana spelling differs slightly from hiragana. While hiragana spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana, katakana usually uses a vowel extender mark called a chōon. ... It is generally used in foreign loanwords; long vowels in katakana words of Japanese origin are usually spelled as they would be in hiragana. There are exceptions, such as ローソク (蝋燭 rōsoku "candle") or ケータイ(携帯 kētai "mobile phone").

That's so bizarre! Why would the chōon be used in ローソク and ケータイ, but not in, say, ドヨウビ??? Wikipedia doesn't attempt to give any explanation for this bit of weirdness. Does anyone know of any other examples beyond ローソク and ケータイ?

TIA!

P.S. Google hit counts for the various variants are consistent with the info in Wikipedia. "ローソク" beats "ロウソク" 7.75M to 4.96M, and "ケータイ" beats "ケイタイ" 121M to 15.1M. In contrast, "ドヨウビ" beats "ドヨービ" 12.4K to 900.

People just tend to use the ー when they're writing katakana, no matter what the origin of the word. It's not that bizarre. 土曜日 is hardly ever going to be written in katakana, but if it were, I wouldn't be surprised to see ドヨービ.

yudantaiteki Wrote:People just tend to use the ー when they're writing katakana, no matter what the origin of the word. It's not that bizarre. 土曜日 is hardly ever going to be written in katakana, but if it were, I wouldn't be surprised to see ドヨービ.

Come to think of it, in a writing system as perverse as the Japanese one, nothing can be classified as "bizarre". True... Still I find I find the statistics I posted puzzling... Why only for ローソク and ケータイ do the Japanese tend to favor the ー, whereas for ドヨウビ, サヨウナラ, アリガトウ, etc. they favor adding ウ?

It's easy to understand that "hiragana words" go to katakana in the same way
ie. 土曜日 -> どようび -> ドヨウビ
さようなら -> サヨウナラ

and then "weird kanji" words get turned into "foreign katakana"
蝋燭 -> ローソク

Problem is that it doesn't work like that. 携帯 is still a pretty common kanji.
Also, 左様なら and 有り難う are also pretty common kanji, but the words themselves are used mainly in hiragana.
So, if we were to follow the "weird kanji get foreign treatment" rule, we still have discrepancies about why some "normal kanji" get hiragana and some get foreign treatment.

Then again, ありがとう and さようなら are go way back, so they just might be historical exceptions.

Apparently, ケータイ has come to be used as a shortened way of saying 携帯電話, while 携帯 in the non-cellphone sense would still be written as ケイタイ if rendered in katakana. So perhaps the ー here could be explained either as a disambiguation, or perhaps because ケータイ is a more modern usage of the word 携帯.

As for ローソク, this may come from certain companies' use of that orthography almost like a brand name on their product packaging to catch customers' eyes, and this usage eventually making its way into common usage:

http://www.4109.co.jp/rousoku/1282.jpg

Posts like this tend to exemplify why I am progressing much faster than many on this forum. Why are you overanalyzing so much? I mean it isn't like if you understood their spelling preferences it would somehow help you to progress further into japanese. It is a vaguely related matter and I even doubt linguists worry about such trivial things.

And just think.....you'll be even better than the rest of us at Japanese and English if you don't waste time on such asinine posts. =)

But I'm not wasting time, I can only use this and other english sites for an allotted amount of time each day, therefore, If I am posting here it means I'm usually content with my learning for the day.

Yonosa Wrote:Posts like this tend to exemplify why I am progressing much faster than many on this forum.

*Bows down in awe at the size of your e-peen.*

It's so......BIG!

Yonosa Wrote:Posts like this tend to exemplify why I am progressing much faster than many on this forum.

Why don't you write a post in Japanese so we can see how your progress is?

Quote:But I'm not wasting time, I can only use this and other english sites for an allotted amount of time each day, therefore, If I am posting here it means I'm usually content with my learning for the day.

OK, I think I understand. Posting to ask a question about the Japanese writing system = wasting time. Posting to criticize someone else = not wasting time.

It is just some honest advice. I mean we can use logical reasoning to ascertain that this question is unlikely to have a satisfactory answer, nor is it likely to be applicable.

No, I won't post in japanese here, there is no point. I talk regularly on japanese video chat sites. I do have more time than most to study, but all the same those who have less time should spend it more wisely if they are adamant about getting their pera pera going on.

Yonosa Wrote:No, I won't post in japanese here, there is no point.

Chicken?

Yonosa Wrote:It is just some honest advice.

Yonosa Wrote:Posts like this tend to exemplify why I am progressing much faster than many on this forum.

Is it a productive use of time to scrutinize forum posts to determine how fast other users are progressing relative to yourself? I spend a lot of time on this forum and with the exception of ta12121, who almost never stops talking about his progress, I don't have the slightest idea how fast anyone is progressing with their studies.

Yonosa Wrote:No, I won't post in japanese here,

Then quit your high-horse preaching and go back to studying.

JimmySeal Wrote:

Yonosa Wrote:It is just some honest advice.

Yonosa Wrote:Posts like this tend to exemplify why I am progressing much faster than many on this forum.

Is it a productive use of time to scrutinize forum posts to determine how fast other users are progressing relative to yourself? I spend a lot of time on this forum and with the exception of ta12121, who almost never stops talking about his progress, I don't have the slightest idea how fast anyone is progressing with their studies.

sorry if I'm talking too much about my progress, but I've lower the amount of talking when it comes to my progress now lol. Even though I may be progress well, I'm not close to being fluent(not yet at least) but with confidence if I keep going, as with anyone as well. If they keep going, they should reach there goal in no-time.

I laugh at what this thread has become, thanks to Yosona's e-peen.

Yonosa Wrote:Why are you overanalyzing so much?

Who's over-analysing? Maybe their entire reason for learning Japanese is that they like the writing system and want to know the intricacies of its use. Not everyone has the same goals. And certainly not everyone is sacrificing their entire life on some masochistic AJATT studying marathon, bent on fluency in the shortest period of time, no matter what. Not everyone sees it as a race.

As for the original question, my experience agrees with Asriel. Words that are just written in katakana instead of hiragana retain hiragana like spelling. Words that are actually of japanese origin, but use rare kanji, tend to use the ー. Almost as if they're being treated as loan words. In general, i think the latter is way more common than the former. Just my experience though, i'm still learning.

I think it's just like english, you have to learn how to spell each word you learn, there are too many exceptions. With the addition that there's generally a few ways to spell something in japanese depending on the mood of the author.

ta12121 Wrote:sorry if I'm talking too much about my progress, but I've lower the amount of talking when it comes to my progress now lol.

I didn't mean any offense to you, and yes you have been better about it lately :-) Your progress is very impressive, and you should keep it up.

I always assumed gbnumbers posted queries like this thread because of an interest above and beyond everyday study during their own free moments, so it's hardly fair to phrase a post assuming they're the one wasting time and overanalyzing, Yonosa. I do think it's a nice caution to not obsess over surface things, but you can't presume too much in voicing such cautions to people, methinks, and prefaced with such self-back-patting assertion. ^_^

JimmySeal Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:sorry if I'm talking too much about my progress, but I've lower the amount of talking when it comes to my progress now lol.

I didn't mean any offense to you, and yes you have been better about it lately :-) Your progress is very impressive, and you should keep it up.

thanks. I didn't take any offense to it,but I know sometimes I can rumble on about my own progress lol. My progress has been nice so far.

Somethings I've been noticing now is, the need to do less srsing(vocab,context,etc). It's more about maintaining it.Even when I do production cards, I'd rather just copy/write journals that I get from natives,etc(books,journals,essays,etc) then copy my production cards(kana to kanji). I'd say in another year, I'll be changing my strategy a lot for japanese(will be trying some new approaches,srsing-wise/other factors)

(P.S. lol sorry about the above post, I couldn't help myself there. I'm posting it in hopes it will help others who are learning just like me, that's why I post my progress.)

Yeah, I have to second the part about needing the srs less and less, I'm right in the area where I can ween myself off studying a lot of redundant things in my srs, and can spend a lot more time in the books, and understand them remarkably well, although not academic level materials just yet of course.

Yonosa Wrote:Yeah, I have to second the part about needing the srs less and less, I'm right in the area where I can ween myself off studying a lot of redundant things in my srs, and can spend a lot more time in the books, and understand them remarkably well, although not academic level materials just yet of course.

Of course.