It is definitely spring!
We love taking a walk around our neighborhood to see what kind of flowers are blooming these days.
Every night, my son and I work on two kinds of homework. One is in English and one is in Japanese. English homework from his elementary school are math and reading, which he finishes quickly, to spend more time on his Japanese homework from his Saturday school.
Katakana is a set of 46 characters in Japanese mainly used for words imported from foreign languages.
Since foreign words must be converted into this limited set of sounds in Japanese, you need to learn the rules and also sometimes Google and find how some newly introduced foreign words are written in Katakana in modern Japanese.
The results are often very different from how original English words are pronounced and makes you laugh or confused.
My son just started to realize this in his writing assignments from his Saturday school....
Through a quick Google search, I found several websites you can use to convert English words to Katakana. Although it it can't convert every word perfectly, it is better than nothing for those who need to a quick fix.
English to Katakana Converter
https://www.sljfaq.org/cgi/e2k.cgi
例えば、日本語で話すときは「マリナーズ」、英語で話すときは「Mariners」。会話では簡単に二つの言語の発音を完璧に使い分けている息子が、日本語で最初の壁（？）にぶち当たりました。
「なんで Mariners って書いちゃいけないの？マリナーズって書くって、わからない。難しいよう～」。
でもカタカナが読めないと日本に行ったときに不便だし、日本在住の方々との会話でカタカナにされた英語がわからないときがあります。
私が初めて聞いたときに英単語と瞬時にマッチングできなかったカタカナ言葉に「モチベーション」「ブレスト」などがあります。
そういえば昔、夫も「Starbucks」がどうやったら「スターバックス」になるのかわからないと言ってたな。