I'm a beginner with Japanese and have been practising katakana more recently
and in doing so, I noticed that many—maybe most—times, the reason something is
written in katakana is because it is derived from English. Some katakana words
are also derivatives of other languages (e.g. "アルバイト").

However, sometimes Japanese words are written in katakana despite their being
originally Japanese.

How can I as a beginner distinguish between these different types of katakana?
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2016-07-30T07:50:13.927
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2016-07-30T20:51:56.483
2016-07-30T20:51:56.483
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question
katakana orthography
How to distinguish between different types of katakana words?
_Katakana_ has [many
functions](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/1930/1628). To check whether
you are dealing with a Japanese word (where _katakana_ has been used for
emphasis, or in a scientific context, or...) or a word that is a loanword from
a foreign (often Western) language, it suffices to check an ordinary
monolingual dictionary, for example 大辞泉 via <https://kotobank.jp/>.

You don't need to be able to read the whole Japanese definition as the
etymology of loanwords is listed at the beginning and in the Latin alphabet so
you can't miss it. For example,

> **アルバイト** （〈ドイツ〉Arbeit）

If you are dealing with a native Japanese word, it is usually listed with ひらがな
or 漢字 (probably with exceptions). For example, ダメ would be listed as

> **だ‐め** 【駄目】

and the _katakana_ here are for emphasis/slangyness,

There are also slang words like ググる (from グーグル Google), some of which have
become standard (like サボる). For more on this take a look at [Are there words
which consist of katakana and hiragana letters
together?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/15199/1628)
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2016-07-30T20:48:17.777
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2016-07-30T20:48:17.777
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answer