If you are a Japanese student, you should know that a sentence is composed of various words written in katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Or that even some words and 動詞 have kanji along with hiragana.
However, have you ever wondered if a word can have a part written in hiragana and katakana? Or if the same word written in hiragana can be written in katakana or vice versa? In this article, we will answer these 2 questions and answer other questions.
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A compound word of Hiragana and Katakana
This is practically rare and impossible, and most of the time it breaks the rules of Japanese. It's easy for you to think that there is a compound word with the 2 spellings, since it's not common to have spaces between words.
An example of a word that is composed of hiragana and katakana is the slang スタバる (sutabaru) which means "to go to Starbucks", they simply took the word スタバ and added る as if they were trying to create a new verb. There are other verbs that originated from other languages and typically end with the hiragana る.
Another example of a word that is made up of hiragana, katakana, and kanji is 消しゴム (keshigomu) which means "eraser" (for erasing, school material), but this word is the combination of 2 words: the verb 消す (kesu) which means to erase and the word ゴム which means "rubber" or "eraser".
Another word is イケてる (iketeru) which can be translated as "cool, sexy, sensual, nice, handsome man, good-looking guy". We also have サボる (saboru) which can mean "a person who is skipping, absent, slacking off, sabotaging or neglecting something, it can refer to a person who is sleeping, daydreaming or not paying attention in class".
There are still other words like 歯(は)ブラシ (haburashi) which means toothbrush, and also レジ袋 (rejibukuro) which means shopping bag, but both seem more like word combinations.
When it comes to prefixes and suffixes, especially kanji, you will find words or combinations of words that are composed with both writings. Another example is the names of people that are written with suffixes such as san, kun, senpai, etc.
Can a word be written with katakana and hiragana?
Various words can be written in Hiragana and Katakana, such as names of people, some objects, etc. Mainly manga authors often use Katakana to write some words that are usually written in Hiragana, using this technique to emphasize the word. How to know which word can be written in both?
There are no specific rules that define whether a word can or cannot be written in katakana or hiragana. You can ensure that the person reading will understand, and if there is no other word written in katakana that means something else, considering that Japanese has 3 scripts specifically to differentiate 同音異義語. It is worth noting that this goes beyond the rules of Japanese; it is like creating or using slang.
Something similar happened with the words in kanji, over the years the Japanese began to write these words in hiragana, and this has meant that nowadays they are written more in hiragana than originally in kanji.
So basically there are no rules regarding writing a word in another script, I have already come across the word 日本 (nippon) written as ニッポン and にっぽん, as well as written in the other pronunciation nihon. For example, the song ニッポン笑顔百景 (nippon egao hyakkei).
I hope this article has answered your questions regarding this subject. Do you know any other words that are often spelled in other ways or that are made up of katakana and hiragana? Leave your comments to complement the subject.
