When to use katakana?

[moejoe56]

In Premium Lesson #16 - SS12: Delicious Crêpe


katakana was used for the word 'dame'


why?

[Psy]

Because it's rather like writing in italics.

[arrowisland]

It's also done a lot when the kanji is "too difficult" or time consuming, or so my friends tell me. Like rose, バラ (薔薇). Very, very few people can actually write it in kanji, although they can read it. So it's mostly written in katakana. Same with words like バカ (馬鹿).

[markystar]

yeah, i've usually seen the word written in katakana or hiragana, my guess is because it's faster to read or write.