Tamagotchi Ps in two different types of Japanese?!

[dazzilitchigirl]

Yesterday I downloaded some Japanese alphabet stuff so I could translate a few things on my Tamagotchi Ps. I printed out the Hiragana sheet first. I recognised some of it from my Japanese Tamas, but when I tried to translate the name of my Tama (Kiraritchi), "Ki" was written differently on the Tama to how it was on the sheet. So were "ra" and "ri". I scrolled down on the Japanese alphabet page and found another sub-language, Katakana. I found that the "ki", "ra" and "ri" on my Tama were written in Katakana. When it came to the "tchi", though, it was in Hiragana! The Katakana letter for "tchi" looked completely different.

So...why is the Tamagotchi Ps in two languages? It would be a bit odd if we had an English/French Tama like that or something; neither English nor French people could understand it, so how do Japanese people?

 

[tamagotchialice]

Well all Japanese people are raised to learn all 3 forms of Japanese alphabet.

Kiraritchi was more likely written that way because it is not an actual 'word' in Japanese. Any foreigner or their name gets spelled with either Katakana or both Hiragana and Katakana combined.

Hope I helped ><

 

[Midorime]

Japanese has 3 alphabets: Kanji, hiragana, and katakana.

Kanji are the symbols that mean entire words or thoughts.

Hiragana are the standard basic sounds. You may sometimes find them in a real tiny form along the side of Kanji, which is to help younger kids read Kanji they haven't learned yet.

Katakana are the standard basic sounds used for foreign words and names.

 

[ichiro.malfoy]

The Japanese language utilizes three alphabets, as mentioned above by the others.

However, the colour Tamagotchis only use the basic alphabets which are the Hiragana and Katakana - as most children have yet to learn Kanji (the more complex Chinese characters).

 

[binary]

And I imagine at this very moment, there's a Japanese person wondering why English uses two alphabets for the same sounds. Yes, we do use two in English. We're just so used to it that we don't recognize it any more. I'm referring to uppercase and lowercase letters. Most uppercase letters closely resemble their lowercase counterparts (C and c, O and o, Z and z), some only vaguely resemble them (K and k, P and p, U and u), but others are completely different (A and a, E and e, G and g).

 

[Amat Gotchi]

Think of Katakana as italics: they are used for emphasis, foreign words, and the like.