Reduplication mark 々

Question

i wanna ask you about donojiten 々. These mark's function is to repeat a word right? But when I searching まだまだ、休み休み、泣き泣き on website dictionary and replaced by 々, cant found those words meaning. So donojiten cant be used by all types reduplication words? Or maybe there is a reason why? Thank you

Answer 1

The function of 々 is to repeat kanji in a word, for example 日々 ("day-to-day"), 木々 ("trees") and 各々 ("each"). You cannot use 々 for 泣く泣く, まだまだ and most onomatopoeia. In addition, 々 is usually not used across word boundaries. For example 会社社長 ("company president") is usually written without 々 because 会社社長 is two words.

There is also a symbol called くの字点, with which you can repeat kana, but this is not used anymore.

See: Japanese iteration marks