-- 3 questions --
 

1. I'm curious to know of the flexibility of Katakana. I know it is a way of writing and pronouncing foreign words in Japanese... So would that mean there can be different Katakana for any one foreign word?

For example: 'Warning' -
a. ウォ—ニング
b. ウォルニング
c. ウォ—ルニ



2. The use of 'da' and 'ga' in reference to a noun.
When do you use 'da'; when do you use 'ga'?

For example (in Romaji): ... Shinobi da.



3. The us of the '—' symbol. Are there certain times you should use this or is it a matter of preference?

For example: モ—ニング or モニング

1. There is usually only one way of writing an English-stemed word in katakana.

warning = ウォーニング　Not that this word is often used in Japanese, though. Let's pretend your family name is Warning. It will be written none other than ウォーニング.

2. da and ga are NEVER interchangeable. Da is used in casual speech to mean "desu" = to be. Ga is a subject marker in a sentence.

Shinobi da. = If you mean 'ninja' by shinobi, you will in dramas hear "Shinobi da." to mean either "I'm a ninja" or "That's a ninja". You can never say "Shinobi ga." Something has to follow the ga, as in "Shinobi ga modotte kimasen" = The shinobi hasn't returned.

3. The only times you use the ー mark is when you elongate the syllable right in front of the ー. It's not you have the choice of using it and not using it.

In the case of モーニング, it's always モーニング. You will sound more foreign than you might think if you say モニング.

Warning isn't usually written in katakana, but if it were, I would choose a. ウォ—ニング as it is closest to　モーニング　morning and they have almost the same pronunciation.

Figuring out how to transfer English to katakana is really hard, and takes a lot of practice.

Shinobi da is a sentence all by itself. "It's a shinobi."


Shinobi ga is an incomplete sentence. "The shinobi..." (?)


There is a LITTLE flexibility, especially with names, but most of the time it is set in stone.

[accidental double post]

Ah, I see... There must've been times I'd gotten 'da' confused with 'ga', which led me to believe they were somehow related... I have to work on my listening skills.

*** 'Ga' is similar to 'Wa'?

Thanks for the clarification, Nago and M.

Simple answer: yes. Long answer: there have been books written about "wa" "ga" and "o".

Understood. I shall see what information I can dig up.
Thanks again.

You're welcome.

Like a lot of the harder parts of English, wa, ga, and o are difficult for some Japanese to explain, and there are a lot of "just because" answers unless you are talking to an actual Japanese teacher. There are several ways to try and memorize, and you just need to find the system that works for you.

The use of the — is mainly to elongate a sound in Katakana but we can use an example from my favorite hanshin tigers to show it can be used sometimes at the description of the user, There was a good foreign player named Randy Bass who's last name would be バス in Katakana, well this is also how you say Bus and since the tigers are sponsored by the Hanshin railway company they decided to spell his named バ—ス to avoid newspaper headlines like "unstoppable bus", or "bus crashes" which may reflect poorly on Hanshin. In my own name it depends on how you want the emphases my bank card insists on using バ—グ— while I prefer to use just バ—グ which sounds closer to my English pronunciation.