
New font lets anyone learn Japanese - callumlocke
http://www.dramafever.com/news/new-font-incorporates-english-pronunciation-guide-into-japanese-katakana-characters-/
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greenyoda
_" A U.K. company named Johnson Banks has come with an ingenious way to
include English pronunciation in Japanese katakana characters."_

Unfortunately, learning katakana characters doesn't get you anywhere close to
"learning Japanese" (as the article's title suggests), since katakana is the
writing system that's used for _foreign_ words and other specialized uses.

According to Wikipedia:

 _" The katakana syllabary usage is quite similar to italics in English;
specifically, it is used for transcription of foreign language words into
Japanese and the writing of loan words (collectively gairaigo); for emphasis;
to represent onomatopoeia; for technical and scientific terms; and for names
of plants, animals, minerals, and often Japanese companies."_[1]

To understand Japanese, you also need to learn kanji (the thousands of
Chinese-derived pictographic characters) and hiragana.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana)

