I am very early on in my Japanese-learning journey. So if others contradict me, they are probably a better source. :)
But from what I understand Hirigana is used more for Japanese words, and Katakana more for loan words from other languages.
It actually leads to a nice shortcut for some words. If I’m reading Hirigana I’ll try to match that with words in Japanese that I know. However, if the word I’m looking at is Katakana, I’ll flip that off and start trying to match phonetically.
I assume with fluency this all becomes automatic, but I’m a ways off from that yet!
But from what I understand Hirigana is used more for Japanese words, and Katakana more for loan words from other languages.
It actually leads to a nice shortcut for some words. If I’m reading Hirigana I’ll try to match that with words in Japanese that I know. However, if the word I’m looking at is Katakana, I’ll flip that off and start trying to match phonetically.
I assume with fluency this all becomes automatic, but I’m a ways off from that yet!