How do I say "cat"? And do I use kanji, hiragana, katakana or rōmaji?


> 猫, ねこ, ネコ, neko

Which of these means "cat"? Is it all of them? Which situation do I use each
of these in?




Firstly, r­ōmaji is not used to write Japanese. (The only Latin letters you
find in Japanese text are abbreviations, like CD, OL, TPP, etc.)

Now, the question reduces to whether all of 猫, ねこ and ネコ can be used to say
"cat". And the answer is "yes!".

Especially for plants and animals, it's often not so easy to decide which is
the most natural choice in a given context (and the choice varies from person
to person).

But in the case of "cat", the kanji 猫 has been a _jōyō kanji_ since 1981, and
is by a large margin the most common way of writing "cat" (data from the
Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese, via
<http://nlb.ninjal.ac.jp>)

[code]

    猫　     6171 results (82%)
    ネコ     1340 results (18%)
    ねこ       54 results  (1%)
    
[/code]

* * *

For more info about the difference between kanji, katakana & hiragana for
plants or animals see the following questions:

  * [How to know when I should use katakana form words referring to animals, lesser creatures, or other organisms?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/15695/1628)
  * [Why are katakana preferred over hiragana or kanji sometimes?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/1930/1628)
  * [Are ミツバチ and イルカ more frequently written in katakana?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/24932/1628)
  * [Why are the names of plants and animals often written in katakana?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/20840/1628)
  * [Octopus kanji: 章魚 vs 蛸 vs 鮹](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/30463/1628)
  * [Writing キリン vs 麒麟 (Giraffe vs Qilin)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/7074/1628)




Firstly, r­ōmaji is not used to write Japanese. (The only Latin letters you
find in Japanese text are abbreviations, like CD, OL, TPP, etc.)

Now, the question reduces to whether all of 猫, ねこ and ネコ can be used to say
"cat". And the answer is "yes!".

Especially for plants and animals, it's often not so easy to decide which is
the most natural choice in a given context (and the choice varies from person
to person).

But in the case of "cat", the kanji 猫 has been a _jōyō kanji_ since 1981, and
is by a large margin the most common way of writing "cat" (data from the
Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese, via
<http://nlb.ninjal.ac.jp>)

[code]

    猫　     6171 results (82%)
    ネコ     1340 results (18%)
    ねこ       54 results  (1%)
    
[/code]

* * *

For more info about the difference between kanji, katakana & hiragana for
plants or animals see the following questions:

  * [How to know when I should use katakana form words referring to animals, lesser creatures, or other organisms?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/15695/1628)
  * [Why are katakana preferred over hiragana or kanji sometimes?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/1930/1628)
  * [Are ミツバチ and イルカ more frequently written in katakana?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/24932/1628)
  * [Why are the names of plants and animals often written in katakana?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/20840/1628)
  * [Octopus kanji: 章魚 vs 蛸 vs 鮹](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/30463/1628)
  * [Writing キリン vs 麒麟 (Giraffe vs Qilin)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/7074/1628)

