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I usually see the word written in katakana, although a kanji term is
available, and wanted to know the reason.
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2017-03-26T13:30:58.877
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2019-09-27T16:43:15.910
2019-09-27T16:43:15.910
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question
meaning words katakana orthography
Why is ダメ written most commonly in katakana?
Do you mean you think it should be written in kanji? Or katakana?

だめ is a Japanese-origin word. It's written as 駄目 in kanji, and this is a mixed
on-kun compound. Almost all adults understand 駄目 written in kanji.

It's often written in hiragana or katakana because its kanji are relatively
difficult and unrelated to the current main meaning of 駄目. See [my previous
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/15102/5010) for details and
similar examples.
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2017-03-26T23:50:42.800
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answer
だめ in the sense of "no good", "not allowed", etc. derives from 駄目, which is a
term from 囲碁 _igo_ "Go" (the game).

This derivative meaning may also be written as 駄目 (both characters are _jōyō
kanji_ ). However, it appears more frequent in _kana_. The frequencies are
given as follows:

```

    ダメ  5279  44%
    だめ  4247  35%
    駄目  2565  21%
    
```

_Katakana_ are often used for emphasis, or simply for using a different script
in order to make the word visually distinct from the rest of the sentence
(which might be in _hiragana_ as in これはダメです).

In any case, _kana_ are far more common. One reason might be that ダメ・だめ are
used for the derivative meaning of "no good" or "not allowed" to distinguish
it from the literal (game of Go) meaning, which would primarily be written 駄目.
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2017-03-27T10:27:32.320
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answer