Can I use Hiragana and Katakana in the same word?

If you are a Japanese student, you should know that a sentence is made up of various words written in katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Or that even some words and verbs 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 clarify other doubts.

A word composed of Hiragana and Katakana

This is practically rare and impossible, and most of the time it breaks the rules of Japanese. It’s easy to think that there is a word composed of both writings, since it is 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 a る as if they wanted to create a new verb. There are other verbs that originated from other languages and usually end with the hiragana る.

Another example of a word that is composed 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”. And we also have サボる (saboru) which can mean “a person who is skipping, missing, slacking, sabotaging, or neglecting something, it can refer to a person who is sleeping, mentally traveling, 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 combinations of words.

When it comes to prefixes and suffixes, mainly 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 san, kun, senpai, etc.

Can a word be written with katakana and hiragana?

Several words can be written with Hiragana and Katakana, names of people, some objects, etc. Mainly manga authors tend to 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 with both?

There is no specific rule that defines 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 that written in katakana means something else, given that Japanese has 3 writings exactly to differentiate words with the same pronunciation. It is worth remembering that this goes beyond the rules of Japanese, it is like creating or using a slang.

Something similar happened with kanji words, over the years the Japanese began to write these words in hiragana, and this made them more commonly written in hiragana than originally in kanji.

So basically there are no rules regarding writing a word with another writing, I have come across the word 日本 (nippon) written as ニッポン and にっぽん, in addition to being written in the other pronunciation nihon. See 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 topic. Do you know other words that are usually written in different ways or that are composed of katakana and hiragana? Leave your comments to complement the topic.