This is why I hate Katakana

Katakana doesn’t make any sense. If it made sense, I’d like it, but it doesn’t. Hiragana and Kanji make sense. If you don’t understand how to spell a word, you can look it up in a dictionary. Katakana, though, is often so arbitrary that it’s impossible to look up. You just have to guess until you get it right.

Names of cities, for example, are spelled in Katakana. Usually, the Katakana spelling of the city goes by how the people in the city pronounce their city. For example, The Italian city of Florence is written as フィレンゼ which is pronounced “Firenze” just like Italians pronounce their own city. This is fine, and it would be fine if it were a rule. But it’s not a rule. Mexico is a good example.

If Mexico were written in Katakana the way that Mexican people pronounce it, it would be written メヒコ and pronounced “Mehiko” the way that it is pronounced in Spanish. But the correct Katakana spelling of Mexico is メキシコ and pronounced “Mekushiko”. “Mekushiko” is vaguely styled after the American English pronunciation of Mexico, except that the Japanese language doesn’t have a sound for “X” so people make this awkward “kushi” sound that nobody outside of Japan can recognize as part of the word Mexico.

Other times, the Katakana words sound nothing like the real word in any language. For example, California should probably be written カラフォーニャ(karafo-niya) カリフォルニア(karihorunia). Why there is an “ru” character in the middle of California when it would just as easily be written without one in Japanese cannot be explained logically.

Still other times, different people in different places in Japan spell the same Katakana word differently. Brussels, the capital city of Belgium, for example, can be spelled as ブリュッセル(Buriuuseru), ブラッセル(Buraaseru), and sometimes even ブラッセルズ（Buraaseruzu）. There may be people who read this and decide to post about how Katakana words are Japanese and people just have to suck it up and learn to like Katakana or get out of Japan. To those people, I’d say that I like the Japanese language a lot and part of the reason I don’t like Katakana is because it is replacing a beautiful language with unintelligible meanings of foreign words. Japanese people already have words for things, but they replace the perfectly good Japanese with Katakana.

Why use スプーン when there's already 匙?
Why use ベランダ when there's already 縁側?

Even prominent Japanese people have expressed dislike for Katakana. Ex Prime Minister Koizumi told the members of his parliament to stop using Katakana English in speeches and written reports because most members didn’t understand what they were talking about. Katakana English also creates a huge gap between the young and old generations, as well as creating a whole bunch of young people who know their version of the meanings of foreign words.

Before WW2, Japan didn't always assign Katakana to everything foreign. The telephone wasn't invented in Japan yet it has the Kanji 電話 instead of Katakana. Countries also have Kanji names, though they are seldom used.　(America, for example was called 米国 Beikoku before WW2 but now it's usually called アメリカ America).

Kanji is just better. A Japanese grandma is not going to know what on earth the ストリーミング function in デジタルメディアストリーミングプレーヤー ("digital media streaming player") does, but a Chinese grandma would have some vague idea what 流媒体 in 数字流媒体单机 (traditional characters: 數字流媒體單機) does. I know I'm going to get comments about how Hiragana is the only "true" Japanese writing system and that Kanji is from China. I know. I'm just saying that I think Kanji is far more useful than Katakana. Even Roman letters would be preferable to Katakana. At least they could teach the proper pronunciation of foreign things, if you're going to call them by their foreign names and not use Kanji for them.

My friend Haruka thought that バイト (baito means part-time job) was somehow from English when actually it comes from the German word Arbeit, meaning “work” and pronounced in Japanese as “Arubaito” and then shortened to simply, “Baito” which looks nothing like the German or Japanese version of the word. (On top of that, most Japanese people think it comes from English.)

As an English teacher in Japan, this makes things difficult. All foreign things are written in Katakana, so when you’re trying to teach people English words they already “know” in Katakana, it’s hard to break their bad pronunciation habits. Did you know that McDonald’s (the fast food chain / last name) has 6 syllables when Japanese people pronounce it? Pronunciation aside, the Katakana English words often have a completely different meaning in English which is fine if people have no interest in learning English but difficult if the person goes abroad and thinks that smart = skinny and a viking means a buffet.Sometimes, Katakana is awesome, though. Yesterday, my friend (a hairdresser) was talking about what he thinks are the worst hairstyles in the world, and he kept saying, “Barcode”. I had no idea what a “Barcode” hairstyle is, and it turns out that “Barcode” means COMBOVER in Japanese Katakana. That’s funny!