I think I was pretty mellow in my point of view, but having to read this comment just radicalized me. #BanKatakana

@@Shockocksthegreat haha! Welcome to the brotherhood 😂

woa

That made my brain hurt trying to read that lol

@@coolbrotherf127 The pain is learning... I think, haha.

This analogy is perfect lmao 😂

😂

Sa-n-do-wi-chi. Yum.

You are for sure not alone, haha.

My god that title is a mess, haha. Although I have the most problems with Katakana, I do have my fair share of problems with Kanji (which I will most likely rant about at some point, lol). Thanks for the kind words!

I'm doing pretty well with Hiragana and Katakana and looking to start Kanji, but god, I have trouble with Katakana unless I constantly review it, it's always worse than Hiragana for me, it's nice to see it's not just me that struggles with the Katakana (I could barely read Bravely Default and I still couldn't work it out).

Haha, katakana is a forever journey. Although I will say katakana is much more frequent than I think is given credit. I feel the real difficulty comes from the fact that you have nothing to help you. You either know the word or you don't. Even if I see a new word written in kanji, I still have a sense of familiarity. That and katakana tends to handle sounds that are not present anywhere else in Japanese.

Although this does get better with alot of exposure, it for sure adds unnecesary pain to an already painful process, haha.

yes, i'm doing online japanese classes and i usually feel like an idiot because the teacher won't translate for me (i just mastered the shi and the tsu but the others not so much) and everyone keeps there waiting for me to speak while I desperately look at the katakana chart and i'm still unsure about the angle lol hiragana is a cute little baby and i'm kind of learning kanji just by being exposed to it (at least the meaning) but katakana is really a pain in the ass

Katakana has alot of characters that look similar that stuff me up e.g. ラワフ, there's another two characters that look similar to these three, but I don't seem to get those two mixed up thankfully.

ウ and ワ get me every time. And ソ, since it seems to be the rarest of the 4.

I always go shi (シ)is looking at tsu (ツ) As for ン and ソ... I got nothing and I always just assume ン

haha, I believe I had 36 subs 2 week ago, I'm pretty happy about having 133 atm. Appreciate the kind words!

@@lazyfluency To add on your video, I believe that what's even more f*cked up is Hiragana and Katakana's stories. Usage of katakana for "forreign" words was actually implemented in the orthography reforms of the 1960s. Before, it was basically a "I don't know, fk around and find out" battle between hiragana and katakana. Even the reason why these two came into existence is mind blowing. At first, there were only kanji. However, as women were barred from learning them, they basically invented their own thing with a few kanjis that had a specific prononciation (ending in the simplified hiragana). Then, the men realised it was actually clever to use a single alphabet rather than a 35 strokes kanji to write a meaningless syllab, but went "hell nah we not using the woman thing" and just made their own (katakana). Both alphabets ending up mixing in everyday life to the point that no one knew what to do with them until the 1960s.

@@vector.z4065 That's so funny. I knew about the origin study as well as some modern history such as Japan actually restricting the use of Katakana during WW2 as a way to invoke nationalism, but I never knew there was a specific reform. I've never heard of a language struggling so hard to understand itself. That is arguably what makes Japanese so interesting though.

@@lazyfluency If you read the original publication of "I am a cat" in the newspapers back in 1905, you'll see that they are written in kanji+katakana (where you'd find kanji+hiragana today), and from right to left ! Not only did they struggle with the alphabet itself, but they also struggled (and still do) with the sense of the writing. And I read that title backwards a few times... I agree with you, Japanese is interesting. Also, what might explain why even the "foreign words used" katakana are a mess, it's because some loan words were already used in a specific form long before the reforms in the 1960s. Tobacco, for example, is one of the few loan words from Portuguese and first European contacts with Japan. It was already widespread even during the Edo period. First names are written in katakana from the same reason : it's traditions and the reforms didn't take the political risk of replacing these

@@vector.z4065 Wow, all of this is super interesting, I might do a larger deep dive on this at some point, haha. Thanks for the dope intel!

After reading your comment I had to check the spelling again as well, lol. Boomerang sounds like it could also be an old person drink (Boomer + Tang (an american orange drink)). You also reminded me of the old school cartoon channel Boomerang (it's been forever since I thought about that) - Joey

One of the reasons katakana is sinister is that generally speaking it is perceived by foreigners and native speakers as being used for words of non japanese origin. I.E. I have had many conversations with people were they will use wasei-eigo in place of English, assuming it is English. Or they will use a word spelled with katakana in English despite the word not being of English origin. With that said, don't get it twisted, I have plenty of complaining energy left in the tank to complain about Portuguese too, haha. Joey

@@lazyfluency I did notice later that an extremely ubiquitous pseudo-anglicism wasn’t listed in wiktionary: boy. At first glance, it looks like a regular loanword: it means “boy”, same as the English word. Sometimes used for a young servant or employee, just like English. It can also mean specifically a rich boy, which’s a bit of a semantic drift, but nothing too crazy. It also can mean “boyfriend” or “hookup” (masculine), which’s not too crazy, though in English “boy” isn’t as used in this sense as “girl”. But the real thing is that you can use the diminutive _boyzinho_ (similar to hypothetical Spanish “boycito”), which is unambiguously a current or potential hookup/boyfriend. And even better, you can turn it into the feminine to get a word for girlfriend, _boyzinha._ So yeah, a slang for “girlfriend” in Portuguese can literally be translated as “little boy”, but with the feminine ending. Not unlike our word for waitress, which’s “garçonete” (which’s not even slang, people literally use the equivalent of “boy-ette” in formal settings), so at least you can rest knowing English isn’t the only language we butcher.

@@felipevasconcelos6736 I doubt wiktionary is that comprehension, haha. Languages have a lot of words. Your reply makes me think about at what point semantic drift is significant enough to fall into the waseieigo category (although I believe technically waseieigo implies no relation). Although not as drastic as the portugese example, ギャル comes from gal in English, but means a very specific style which emphasizes heavy make up, tanned skinned, and a showy personality. ビッチ comes from bitch, but means whore instead of someone who is cowardly/petty. Also it can't be used to refer to men. This all becomes even more convoluted when you consider that there is no such thing as a pure language. All languages borrow, all languages distort. Joey

ih o cara fala portugues olha q otario, eu nunca faria um ngc desses, falar uma lingua dessas🙄

I would refer you to 1:23, haha. i.e Ayami, the other co-host of the Lazy Fluency Podcast as well as ocassional participant in Lazy Fluency main channel videos. Links in the description as well as in the pinned comment :) Joey

Thanks so much! Haha, we were wondering if people would notice the clothes bit. Glad to know some redditors enjoy the vid.

@@lazyfluency of course, those who don't are just being too serious for their own good 😊

Wow I can't believe I didn't notice the clothes. 😩 I gotta stop watching informative content on the treadmill.

It seems we will find ourselves on opposite sides of the great Katakana War, haha.

お役に立てて嬉しいです😀 ジョーイ

Thanks so much! Appreciate the kind words. Many more vids to come!

It was said out of love... and necessity, lol

I know, right? Hilarious. I'd never heard that joke before. But it's so brilliant that who knows, it might even catch on.

1/3 of the way there is certainly better than none of the way there. Assuming you even know that you are 1/3 of the way there, haha.

There is certainly far too much tomfoolery afoot, haha.

The difference is that you have tools for inference such as latin roots at your disposal. With katakana you cannot apply any previous language knowledge to make an educated guess.

Japanese is an endless journey, lol. My rant comes from a place of love, not hate, haha. Joey

I very recently only had around 30, haha. So I'm pretty happy with 400 😂

thanks!

Thanks for the kind words!

@@lazyfluency Same. GLORIOUS rant, Sir.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Everyday I become more and more tempted to do a katakana history deep dive, haha Katakana is just... so weird😂

@@lazyfluency DO IIIIIT. That'd be delightful.

I think its used for fish given their weird names in kanji, so that they aren't confused with the hiragana parts of a sentence. The same way some games i've played in japanese use katakana for the names of characters rather than having them in hiragana or ruby text above their name in kanji

lol, adding pitch accent marks might just make things extra confusing for the average learner, but aside from that I'm with you. I've kinda come to love kanji though, haha. At the same time, I hate it though. Japanese is funny that way.

@@lazyfluency To be fair, I feel the same way about katakana too lol

The diacritic mark thing is so easy to implement I'm surprised they haven't done it already if we assume they do remove Kanji you would only need to learn a single character marking high pitch (So 頭高 has a diacritic at the start, 中高 in the middle, 尾高 at the end and 平板 is unmarked) but even if they do want to keep Kanji because Kanji is one of the coolest things in the world you would still only need 3 characters (1 for each "高" and 平板 is unmarked).

@@kakahass8845 I assume it isn't considered necessary for native speakers. Given that Japanese has standardized Japanese that is taught throughout all education levels, it seems like diacritic marks would just be superfluous in most situations. Pitch accent in Japanese is also way less important in terms of information exchange than aspects like tone in other languages like Chinese. Japanese is also highly contextual, so aside from non native speakers who want to improve their pitch accent specifically, I don't see who it would benefit.

It would actually be harder to read japanese if it only were hiragana, partially because there is way too many homophones in the language that you would struggle to differentiate words from grammar inflections.

言語って不思議だよね🤔 ジョーイ

Katakana is basically ditto at this point. It is whatever you want it to be, haha.

@@lazyfluency Hahahah, pretty much!

Technically yes and no. Many chinese loan words are written in kanji. They are sometimes also written in katakana. Determining what is and what isn't a foreign word can get confusing, so I simplified the explanation for katakana as to not add unnecessary confusion, lol.

glad to hear! カタカナ処分総隊長

Glad to know you enjoyed it! I thought that this video might have been too niche to be understood 😂 Happy to hear it resonates with people. -Joey

There truly is no writing system more messed up than the English one.

​@@turkenheimer4448true Japanese kanji is intuitive English alphwbet isn't

What do you mean by correctly identified?

That's hilarious😂 I can see it, lol

そうですね 😂 補助文字や外来語の役割のほかに比喩、駄洒落、強調、単語のニュアンスの説明などの役割もあります。スペースの代わりに漢字と平仮名だけで文章は成立できると思います。。。漢字も自分なりの問題もありますけど😂 漢字も確かに結構難しいと思います。今回はカタカナにフォーカスしたかったです。コメントありがとうございます！ ジョーイ

Thanks so much 😭 We were worried people wouldn't like the video.

@@lazyfluency it was super relatable! Found it from your reddit post.

@@Kithaca747 Thanks! That was what we were going for, but the reddit post ended up being far more controversial than expected. We were shooting for a fun video targetted towards Japanese language and culture enjoyers more so than the linguist/serious learner crowd. But obv, Reddit contains a lot of both.

@@lazyfluency oh damn, sorry you had to deal with some spiciness! Chalk it up to different senses of humor I guess. Personally I love learning languages but I think being able to laugh at the absurdity of it all is a major part of the fun :)

English is currently the Lingua Franca. Which is to say it is the primary language for international communication. This isn't a value judgement of English, it is more so a reality of history and imperialism, haha. Given that there are more people around nowadays than every before, and that English is being used more than any other language, I could see English having the potential for "the most words", but then at the same this is also a game of categorization. Not only do you need to decide what makes a unique word, but also when a word gets to definitively be an influencee as opposed to an influencer. English itself has many words that are borrowed/came from previous languages. Thanks for the comment! Joey

I enjoy studying Japanese. I also enjoy complaining about Japanese, haha. This video is above all else a fun look into the peculiarities of katakana disguised as a rant. At the very least, that is the intention I had when making the video. I'm also just talking about my personal experiences with the language as well as my opinions on those experiences. So bear that in mind :)

a nod to one of the greats

Thanks for the comment! I am actually aware of the distinction between topic and subject regarding "wa." As you mentioned, only to a linguist do subject and topic become important to distinguish. I debated on using the term topic, but decided against it because it isn't what I would say if I was speaking to a friend. This is to say my goal was to provide a casual and entertaining view into my relationship with Japanese more so than a linguistic breakdown and "technically" correct introduction. Personally speaking, I think understanding grammar rules is only useful to give someone general footing in a language that they have no foundation for. With sufficient amounts of input, grammar will become second nature without needing to concretely understand how grammar works. I do appreciate the comment though (as I brought this upon myself, haha). I'm sure it will help people who enjoy and benefit from studying grammar. Thanks! Joey

you're right, haha. As far as I know every major language uses Arabic numerals nowadays so I didn't mention it. Interesting enough though, outside the realm of mathematics it is still fairly common to use kanji when writing dates and counting. Japanese used to use kanji for mathematics as well, but that was a long time ago, haha.

I've also seen a few Japanese Wikipedia articles use Cyrillic as just normal text! Example: 『гипноза』（ギプノーザ）は、核P-MODELの2枚目となるスタジオ・アルバム。

@@Erikatharsis What Japanese person can read that, haha. I for sure haven't seen cryllic used in printed material. Who knows though at this point, lol.

@@Erikatharsis Titles don't really count

Titles are for sure a gray zone. But when I think about atleast the American use of English as a written language, other scripts are never used (unless for the purpose of making something look stylish).

Every day I mind myself leaning towards the hiragana only with strategic spaces option😂

@@lazyfluency I see why lol. Would make learning Japanese from a category 5 language down to a category 4 for sure because spelling would become all of the sudden much easier.

Haha, the makings of a great rant are in there.

haha, that was a joke. Maybe it was to much of an in joke. Basically as an American it is very common for people to mispronounce Japanese words in hilarious ways. By having Ayami pronounce the words clearly and correctly I was trying to contrast our pronunciations to make the joke more obvious. I probably could have done a better job, haha. I don't actually pronounce Japanese like that 😂

@@lazyfluency Ohh... Thank you.

@@paochongloi596 No worries. I think I may have just confused people unintentionally 😂 You live and you learn, I guess, haha.

Yeah exactly. The language can be pronounced pretty easily. It's just the kanji that causes problems with retaining vocabulary while reading.

Fair point, haha.

Katakana traumatized me 🥲

何回もコイポクシュオシラルンベ読もうとしたけど…無理(笑) 全く分からん😂アイヌ語なの？ ジョーイ

@@lazyfluency らしいです。若い頃（30年ぐらい前）、毎年（5年ぐらい）北海道中を車で10日間ぐらいキャンプ旅行に行っていたんですけど、青色看板のアイヌ語地名に絶望しました。ちなみにアイヌ語を漢字に当て字した地名も、ほぼ読めなかったですけどね。長万部とか妹背牛とか（おしゃまんべ　と　もせうし）

@@TheMakoyou アイヌ語はかなり大変ですね。カタカナでも漢字でも読みにくいです。スペースあれば大丈夫だけどね。もちろん、スペースがない言語にスペースを入れることも以外とめんどくさい（笑）

アイコンプリートリアグリー！

You could say this sentence in two ways: この本は素敵 これは素敵 この allows you to specify the object you are referring to, これ does not.

​@@lazyfluency Thank you for your quick reply, especially on a year old video. So, you can say このディオだ。 But not これディオだ。 because a specific noun, ディオ, is after これ, so it has to be この. But would この人はディオだ。 be correct?

@@Cosmic_Ray_ You can say これは You can say このディオは You can't say これディオは～ Hope that helps!

Yes, this was very helpful. ありがとうございます。

If it makes you feel any better, some katakana also tends to trip up native speakers, haha. Unfamiliar foreign names for example.

It actually is still used in many different situations. Book titles, signs, business names, acronyms, kanji reading clarification, and even in some Japanese slang. Here is a fun example: おｋ.

Romaji isn't just in Japanese by happen stance or in the context of learning another language. Romaji is used in native Japanese material for all ages and is understood and read by Japanese people of all ages. Spanish is a language, romaji is a character set. Romaji can be written, read, and understood by the vast majority of Japanese people. In fact if you can't read Romaji, it would significantly affect your ability to engage with Japanese. Romaji is also not treated as English, which is an important distinction to make. It is read and understood as Japanese in the contexts that it is used. If the hangul script was used by Americans in the same way that Japanese people use romaji, I would say hangul is part of American English as a written language. To reiterate, this wouldn't mean Korean is part of English, it would mean that hangul is part of the the written language. Although I have not studied Chinese, it seems to me that pinyin is similar to romaji in many ways. Many native chinese people use pinyin to type and text. Although Hiragana swipe based texting is more popular in Japan, typing with romaji (to communicate in Japanese) is becoming more and more common. I am not saying that Romaji or Pinyin for that matter are officially recognized as *part* of their respective languages. I am stating my opinion on the matter (whether or not you think this is a topic that falls under debate is another question). Although we may disagree, I hope you can atleast see where I am coming from. I appreciate the constructive nature of your comment. Joey

​@@lazyfluency A lot of that applies to Spanish too. Many Spanish words such as "hola", "adiós", "dinero", "taco", "grande", "hombre" "vámanos," "piñata", or simple phrases like "buenos días", "por qué", "uno momento", hasta la vista", etc. can all be written, read, and understood by the vast majority of native English speakers. Hell, most natives can even count in Spanish up to 10, or at least up to 3 at the very least. These words appear a lot in English pop culture and if one doesn't know them, a whole lot of cultural references and jokes would fly right over their head. You said that Katakana is treated as "a fashionable lifestyle brand more so than it is part of the Japanese language", but don't you think this applies way more to romaji? It's also seen in street wear, headlines, comic books, television, and everywhere else you mentioned, again, just like Spanish does in English culture. You say it's not treated as English, yet that seems to be what it's mostly used for. You see it on train stations, street signs, restaurants, billboards, etc., alongside the original Japanese-written names for those things. Why is that? It's obviously not there for Japanese people, since they can already read the Kanji and Kana of those names. It's only there to translate the names into English to aid tourists and foreingers. The main reason Japanese people even learn to read romaji in the first place (usually during elementary) is to be able write their names in English to help introduce themselves to strangers. Typing in romaji is getting more popular because English keyboards (both physical and the digital ones on phones) are becoming more popular and romaji is the only way they can be used to type in Japanese. I do appreciate where you're coming from and I guess you're not directly claiming that it is part of the language. But to imply or insinuate that it's an actual writting system of the language like Kana or Kanji seems to be rather impractical and a misrepresentation of what it's actually there for.

@@jpnpod8277 Ultimately I see romaji in a similar way to katakana. Although their use cases aren't a complete overlap. I'll reiterate that it isn't simply the presence of the character set, but the intended audience. Although I lament katakana's strange presence in the Japanese language, it is easier to make the case that it is Japanese because it isn't mutually intelligible to native English speakers. I don't see romaji as primarily intended for foreigners. It is on the covers and titles of 100% Japanese manga, light novels, novels, songs, intended...etc. intended for a Japanese audience. I have also seen romaji used quite frequently in Japanese literature and business cards to clarify name readings (instead of hiragana or katakana). These works and business cards do no have any English written on them. With regards to your example of Romaji in media and all other locations, I feel it is important to make the distinction between English words written with the roman script and romaji, Japanese written with the roman script. Kanji place/person name reading clarification is not just intended for foreigners. Aside from local and national government initiatives, I would argue that most romaji is intended for Japanese people. Domestic tourism is much larger than foreign tourism in Japan. Japanese media and Japan's social consciousness is way more focused on Japan than anywhere else. If instead of roman characters, kanji were used for ateji, (think old Korean or Japanese), then they would (and were) unquestionably be considered part of the Japanese writing system despite kanji being of Chinese origin. I see romaji as ever present in Japanese as opposed to highly contextual which is how I view Spanish's relationship to English. Additionally the unique aspects of written Spanish such as "ñ" are not present within English. With all this said, there are of course plenty of historical reasons as to why Japan has romaji, but I see the usage of the script more important than the context behind how the script was introduced. English's presence as the lingua franca makes any discussion of English's influence (whether it be spoken or written) on another language to be a lot more complicated. If everyone from a country learns a language at the same time as their native language, and one of those languages heavily influences the other to the point that it creates unique use cases in the native language that are only intended for the native speakers of that language, then in my opinion it seems reasonable to view that aspect of the language to be significant enough to introduce it. I don't believe I gave the impression that I was presenting the definitive/official understanding of Japanese. I wanted the tone of the video to be casual and fun as the main focus was just to serve as a cathartic proxy for other people learning Japanese. Balancing my opinions and creative vision with current perspectives and consensus on given subjects is something I will strive to continue to improve on. I once again appreciate the tone of your response.

@@lazyfluency Business's can work internationally, hence the business cards. And I've already addressed the "fashion" aspect of its use in manga. Outside of that and keyboards, there is not a single use case anywhere in which the presence of romaji is only intended for natives. The bottom line is, you seriously believe that a writing system, which didn't even exist before western influence; was invented and popularized by westerners; is on literally every single western book, website, article, magazine, transcript, and pretty much all other forms of written media that mentions anything about Japanese or something from Japan; is on 100% of official public western documents that mention any Japanese-original name; is an absolute necessity to convey any written Japanese word to the vast majority of westerners; and has no real need, purpose, or practical use towards comprehesion whatsoever for any native reader of the language in any situation, isn't primarily intended for foreigners?? The casual and fun nature of the video is fine and I found it to be rather entertaining. However, that doesn't undermine the implications of misinformation. I'm sorry dude, but to say that romaji is mainly used for natives is just objectively wrong. There's a reason why most Japanese classes and lessons push learners to stop using it early on. Many reasons in fact... It doesn't even accurately represent the sounds of the language. (The English "t" sounds nothing like た, the "r" sounds nothing like ら, etc.) And that's not a matter of opinion, as it is extremely well noted and documented in linguistics that many English-speaking learners have great trouble producing those sounds for that very reason, and vice-versa for Japanese-speaking learners of English. Also, no offense, but I would argue that it's actually quite harmful to give Japanese learners the impression that romaji is a writting system of the language that Japanese people regularly use for communication, as it leads them to rely more on it and obscures their understanding of the true native sounds, causing difficultly with pronunciation and comprehension. This, of course, isn't the case for everyone, but it tends to be.

実は私もスペイン語ができます！発音は少しだけ似ていると思いますが、それのほかに言語の違いが多すぎてそんなに役に立たないと思います😀 ジョーイ

@@lazyfluency 日本語は英語よりもスペイン語と発音が似ています I think Spanish speakers have an advantage in the pronunciation of Japanese compared to English speakers, cuz Spanish and Japanese have similar sound systems, including the presence of short and long vowels and the absence of aspirated consonants. And some sounds in Japanese, such as "r" and "L" are more similar to Spanish than English. Anyway, we still have the same difficulty with pitch accent.

@@seiire_ Yeah for sure. But all in all I think pronunciation is relatively speaking, the easiest part about Japanese, haha. Atleast in terms of what I value in language learning which is comprehension and communication. Pitch accent isn't necessary for either of the above, so I don't sweat it, haha. In the long list of things that are difficult with Japanese I would say Spanish gives you an edge on one of the easier parts. I.E Korean and Chinese for sure give you a much larger leg up on the language.

@@lazyfluency its true that japanese people will be able to understand you but i think pronunciation is important so that the average Japanese person doesn't look at you with a expression such この外人は何を言っているんだろう？. For example, the word カラオケ is pronounced more similarly by Spanish speakers who would say something like "kah-rah-oh-keh," while English speakers might say "carry-oh-key.".

@@seiire_ Totally agree! I think Japanese phonetics are very important as not knowing them will have a large impact on communication.

Overusage is definitely one of the biggest issues with Katakana. I will say one of the other reasons I tend to prefer Chinese loan words over western loan words is because they tend to come with kanji (which give you more information to work with) and they are shorter, and more consistent with Japanese phonetics. I recently was getting my hair cut in Japan and the barber went on an unprompted rant about how much he dislikes katakana and how hard it is to read. Which is why he decided against studying world history and just focused on Japanese history, lmao. Can't blame him.