mixing hiragana and katakana within words?

Index » The Japanese language

  • 1
 
fugu68 Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2005-11-30 Posts: 115

I came across the word ダブる(= to be duplicated, repeat a year at school), which struck me as slightly odd, as it mixes katakana and hiragana within the same word.

I checked with my native speaker informant, and she immediately gave me that spelling, as does my electronic version of the Green Goddess.

So how common is this within-word kana mixing, and can you think of any other examples?

The only other one I found was トラブる (=make trouble), which is same sort of thing - foreign loanword plus -る suffix to turn it into a verb.

Dustin_Calgary Member
From: Canada Registered: 2008-11-11 Posts: 428

This is simply how the grammar works, using る is just a grammar part, not the base word so it does not get katakanized the same way.

Last edited by Dustin_Calgary (2009 November 29, 2:49 am)

fugu68 Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2005-11-30 Posts: 115

Dustin_Calgary wrote:

To add to that maybe make it more clear, the る is added AFTER katakanizing the foreign word in order to make it a verb

Thanks - I did realise that, but was wondering how productive it is - I just can't think of very many examples at all, which I guess it why it looks a bit odd...

Advertising (register and sign in to hide this)
JapanesePod101 Sponsor
 
Dustin_Calgary Member
From: Canada Registered: 2008-11-11 Posts: 428

I had editted that part out after realizing the second katakana word had an r ( l anyways ) sound at the end as well which i thought way lead to more confusion LOL

Last edited by Dustin_Calgary (2009 November 29, 2:54 am)

pm215 Member
From: UK Registered: 2008-01-26 Posts: 1354

サボる is another common one (and interesting in that the loanword it comes from doesn't have the る sound in it). Also there's slang like マクる meaning 'to eat at McDonalds'. (I was told about that one five years ago now so no doubt it's seriously out of date by now smile)

The final section of the wikipedia page on サボる suggests that ダブる and サボる are basically the only ones in really common use, and that there aren't very many others.

I think it's suggestive that both ダブる (in one sense) and サボる are school-related words; I'd guess that they're both teenage slang words that made it into the big-time.

Jarvik7 Member
From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

オナる (= to jerk off) was in 時をかける少女, so I'm surprised no one mentioned it considering how many people subs2srsed it.

Also, スタバる = to goto starbucks.

Both are pretty common.

arnetheduck New member
From: Stockholm Registered: 2008-07-24 Posts: 2

Here's another that puts kanji in the mix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunoichi (with some notes about mixing...)

mezbup Member
From: sausage lip Registered: 2008-09-18 Posts: 1681 Website

Jarvik7 wrote:

Also, スタバる = to goto starbucks.

ええぇ!みじで!?

magamo Member
From: Pasadena, CA Registered: 2009-05-29 Posts: 1039

You can also use katakana for the roots of certain verbs to use them for particular meanings, e.g., もうヤッた? (やる as "get laid").

There are multi-alphabet nouns too. For example, テレビっ子 is a child who spends a lot of time watching TV like a couch potato. As you can see, it has katakana (テレビ), hiragana (っ), and kanji (子).

yudantaiteki Member
Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

バグる - game/program glitches
ググる - google
デニる - go to Denny's
ミサドる - go to Mr. Donut
スタンバる - standby

  • 1