Appendix:Japanese words written in mixed kana

While many Japanese words are written in kanji with following hiragana (okurigana), or some script (kanji or either kana) + 〜する (-suru, “to do”) and others are written purely in hiragana or purely in katakana, a few words are written in a mixture of hiragana and katakana, generally katakana with following hiragana, and are not simply of the form “katakana + -suru”. These include:

• サボる (saboru, “to cut class”), from French sabotage + 〜る to make it a verb.
• デモる (demoru), from English demonstrate + 〜る to make it a verb.
• ググる (guguru, “to search the Web”), from Google + 〜る to make it a verb.
• スタンバる (sutanbaru, “to stand by”), from "standby" + 〜る to make it a verb.

Note that more common would be to suffix 〜する (-suru, “to do”) to make these into verbs.

• ドラえもん (Doraemon, a manga character): “Dora” is from “dora neko” (stray cat), and is a corruption of nora (stray). “Emon” is a component of male given names, such as Goemon, though no longer as popular in the past.
• くノ一 (kunoichi, “female ninja”), which combines the hiragana く, the katakana ノ and the kanji 一, which are the three strokes used to write the kanji 女 (“woman”).