I would love to use Aozra Books as a learning tool, but the accuracy of its ふりがな concerns me. This book, for example, claims 私 is pronounced わたくし instead of わたし.
Is the former a proper pronunciation?
I would love to use Aozra Books as a learning tool, but the accuracy of its ふりがな concerns me. This book, for example, claims 私 is pronounced わたくし instead of わたし.
Is the former a proper pronunciation?
To answer the question in the title, the furigana in Aozora files are the furigana that were actually used in the printed original. So they are accurate in the sense that they represent actual usage.
However, because most of the books there are very old (the majority being prewar), that usage often does not reflect what the Ministry of Education deems acceptable today. In the first few lines of Ozaki Hōsai's "Yogisha", for example, I see 離婚{わか}れて and 妾{わたし}.
In Japanese schools, we were taught that 「わたくし」 was the only correct kun-reading for 「私」. Read it another way, you got marked off.
Originally, this was all I was going to say in my answer. However, I did a quick research and found that it changed in 2010. Now, both わたくし and わたし are correct kun-readings.
That is a proper reading. 「私」 can be read as 「わたし」, 「わたくし」, or one of several archaic ways given the context.
わたくし/わたし
than a certain tool. I think the title should be changed to reflect this, leaving out any particular resource.