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As part of the explanations to the reader in the book 新完全マスターN2, I encountered the word コマ for the first time:

source_book_screenshot

According to jisho.org (see entry 3.), 齣{こま} can mean "time block", which makes perfect sense in my context, but it looks too specific, so I would like to know if コマ can be used in other situations.

Moreover, before checking jisho.org I also tried to find information about the word コマ in this site and came up with this Q&A where the meaning of 豚コマ is discussed, where コマ means "shredded (meat)", and I am wondering if it's related to コマ in my original context in the sense that you might need to divide the lessons in manageable chunks just as you would コマ the meat, if you know what I mean. Probably they are not related because コマ in 豚コマ uses the kanji 細 and not 齣, but I am not sure.

To sum up my questions:

  1. Can 齣{こま} be used as "blocks" or "segments" in other situations apart from "time block"?
  2. Are 齣{こま} and 細{こま} related besides sharing the same reading?

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In fact, it's even more specific than you think. コマ as a counter for classes is almost exclusively used in university education or above. In high school or below, most people use 時間 (or sometimes 時限) to count classes. I don't know why, but it may have something to do with the fact that one class can be much longer than an hour in higher education. I won't be surprised if some (non-school) organizations have a habit of referring to or counting "sessions" (of any kind) using コマ, but it's not common. People usually prefer 枠, 時間帯, ブロック, セッション, etc. By the way, we almost never use the kanji 齣.

コマ肉 such as 豚コマ may be loosely related to 齣 if we trace the etymology seriously, but to me they are basically different words.

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    どちらかと言えば先生・講師にあたる人向けの用語の印象です。 Commented Jul 21, 2023 at 16:25
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    @kimiTanaka 学生(大学生や予備校生以上)も普通に使っている印象が個人的にはありますが、その辺は学校や地域による差も大きそうですね。
    – naruto
    Commented Jul 22, 2023 at 2:45

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