How should I read the "~" mark that stands for range, as described in the title?
I saw this in the following sentence:
3~4行ごとに1行あけると読みやすい。
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3Possible duplicate of Reading a number range – istrasci Feb 7 '15 at 17:01
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2@istrasci Yes, but the answer here is much better. – Eric Wang Feb 7 '15 at 17:43
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2We can potentially close the other question as a duplicate of this one, even though this is newer. – snailboat♦ Feb 7 '15 at 18:48
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There is no strict rule about this. It's best not to use this "～" symbol denoting a range, when it's meant to be read out loud by someone.
But if you really have to, you can read the "～" symbol as "から" in many cases.
- 3～4行ごと さんからよんぎょうごと
- 2月3～5日 にがつみっかからいつか
- 15～17階 じゅうごかいからじゅうななかい or じゅうごからじゅうななかい
- 500～600円 ごひゃくえんからろっぴゃくえん or ごひゃくからろっぴゃくえん
Note that this sounds like you strictly specify the range of numbers. If you say like this, it means "three or four lines; not five nor two".
Alternatively, in this case, you can use the common idiom "さんよん", which more vaguely refers to the range around it.
- 3～4行ごと さんよんぎょうごと
- 2～3日間 にさんにちかん
- 4～5回 しごかい
- 500～600円 ごろっぴゃくえん
These are closer to English "a few", "several", "a couple of", etc.
