Composition 3: 二十ねんごのわたし

二十ねんごのわたしはシャンハイにいます。しずかなどこかにひろいアパートがあります。いいしごとがあります。わたしのアパートから、会社まであまりちかくないですが、ちかてつでとてもべんりです。わたしはもうけっこんしました。むすこがひとりとむすめがひとりいます。かわいいこどもです。わたしはひとりっこです。さびしかったですから、こどもがふたりほしかったです。いま、しあわせがあります。毎年、がいこくへりょこうにいきます。パリとニューヨークがいちばんすきです。

Katakana Analysis - Revision

In textbooks:

Katakana is introduced along with hiragana and kanji (the three of them make up the Japanese writing system). Normally this part is what a Japanese learner would read at the beginning of his/her learning process, so getting to know the whole system and information like 'how many hiragana exist' and 'how many kanji letters will we learn' are of more concern to the reader. I think that's probably why katakana only gets one third (or less?) of the space, which makes it quite impossible for the textbooks to do a very detailed katakana analysis.

The followings are the katakana examples I found from various sources:

(1) Onomatopoeia  
クシュ　sound of sneeze, online


(2) loanwords
ローション　lotion, lotion bottle　

(3)Emphasis

company names
スズキ         Suzuki, company website
ミツビシ     Mitsubishi, company website

signs
ゴミ            rubbish, online
メガネ        glasses, online

words with emphasis in a sentence
ツライ　　painful, Japanese pop song

Katakana Analysis: 

I will write about the company names and the word  ツライ.(pain, sorrow)

(1) company names

Out of historical reasons the Japanese tend to keep pace with 'the western world'. For a company which has good domestic business and is also eager to expand internationally, it's understandable to write their company name in katakana just beside its English equivalent, to make it more modern and international. 

I once heard a story about the Japanese company Bridgestone. The company founder's surname is 石桥 (the two kanji letters literally mean 'stone' and 'bridge'). When he was deciding which company he should go for when doing foreign business, he didn't use the hiragana readings of the kanji, but the simplest English translations of them. Then, why Bridgtone but not Stonebridge? Because 'Stonebridge' would sound too much like a concrete object, and reversing the word order would make it more 'classy'. 

Honestly I didn't think of Bridgestone as a Japanese company until I heard this little story. From it I think we can have a pretty good idea how much effort the Japanese companies make to sound modern and international, and we can see why the company names are in katakana better.

(2) ツライ(pain, sorrow)

I wasn't particularly looking for such a word that day; it popped up like a suprise. It was one of the few times when I got very happy to see something I don't really understand!

I think the reason for emphasis. To express how painful the person is in the song. Actually when I thought about it it's a brilliant way to put words of emphasis into katakana. What do we do if we want to emphasize something in English? Make the words UPPERCASE, like this. It's the same logic with katakana. But when I tried to look for a way to emphasize some words in Chinese? I couldn't find any (other than making the words bold, the font bigger, etc, which are means outside the writing system), for Chinese only has characters/kanji. So way to go! Japanese! lol