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Meaning Behind The Japanese Neko 猫 (Cat) — 11 Comments

  1. Do you sometimes write neko with katakana? I ask because this sentence was in the Core 2000 Anki deck: うちのネコが子猫を生みました。Or did someone mess up when entering this sentence?

      • That goes for animals in general. 
        At least according to “Tokyo Jungle” :D (awesome PS3 game!)

        • Animal and plant names are often written in katakana. Neko and inu are probably the main exceptions (with uma and a few others), but even they are sometimes. I once used the kanji for mushroom and was told by a Japanese speaker that it was very rarely used. It is a simple kanji: 茸 (ear-plant, presumably from those ear-shaped fungi that grow out of trees and such) but most Japanese people write キノコ。

            • From my beloved 化物語:

              「牛?違うって。牛じゃない。カタツムリだって」
              「漢字で書きゃ牛って入ってるでしょーが。ああ、阿良々木くんはひょっとして、カタツムリって片仮名で書いちゃってるの?知能指数が低いなあ。」

              It seems at least some fictional characters don’t even know the kanji for some of these insects…

            • Insect kanji are intense. Even fictional characters can’t keep up.

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