Questions tagged [orthography]
正書法. The standard way of writing the language.
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Which one is standard: 水溜まり or 水溜り?
The verbs are 溜まる and 溜める, then it should be 水溜まり, but I've seen 水溜り more.
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What are the three boxes? ロ, 口 and 囗
I was scrolling the Kanji Unicodes and spotted three box-like characters.
I'm well aware that ロ is the katakana ro, as for which the other two are, I'm not sure.
Among the three ロ (katakana), 口 (kanji)...
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Why is 正 used for tallying instead of 五?
I feel like it would make more sense to use 五 since it literally means 5.
I know that 正 has 5 strokes and 五 has 4, but you could still tally like so:
I also know this question isn't just limited to ...
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How is "yowee" supposed to be written in japanese? (e.g. "anta wa yoweenda yo!", meaning "you're weak!")
When people are speaking crassly, things like じゃない will often be pronounced じゃねえ, with maybe a few variations (e.g. じゃねー, or using katakana, etc.). My question is, how does one usually do this for &...
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Japanese people using a "?" (question mark) after making a statement (not question) ending in "よ"?
I've encountered this a number of times, where, in Japanese, a question mark (?) is used when someone is clearly making a statement, not when posing a question or hypothetical or any such thing. It ...
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What's the meaning of 少フシテ?
I was reading this article on 香川県 in the early 明治 period when I encountered this phrase:
山峰少フシテ平地多ク
I've seen stuff like ふ meaning う (思ふ→思う), but that doesn't seem to apply here. I'm guessing this ...
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How were specific hentaigana selected for writing?
I've been learning how to read older documents and trying to familiarize myself with hentaigana, but as I've started this, I've began to wonder if there is any rhyme or reason to the choices writers ...
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Does ヘカラサル mean べからざる?
I was reading about the formation of 福井 Prefecture recently and I was a bit confused about two sections quoting old texts:
南越ノ民ト加能越中ノ民トハ、常ニ軋轢シテ氷炭相容レサルノ情況
My interpretation is that this means: The ...
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About ancient pronunciation on dictionaries
In large dictionaries like 広辞苑 or 大辞林, there are some entries tagged with "ancient pronunciations" which are almost identical to the modern ones but with a voiced consonant voiceless (or ...
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Is there a name for kanji which look very similar?
For example, 未 and 末.
I tried looking for 同じ見える漢字 and 同見漢字 but they didn't seem to be correct or to refer to what I'm looking for.
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Why are there 3 ways of writing in Japanese?
Why are there kanji, hiragana and katakana? Is there a logical reason behind this or just tradition?
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Why do dictionaries differ so much in terms of spelling and is there an established standard for how a word should be written in contemporary text?
If we look at thee はまる, きこり, しじま and うつつ as three examples of many, they are spelt differently in different well known dictionaries.
はまる has 填まる first in Kenkyusha and Daijisen, while Meikyo and Shin ...
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Why do some Japanese verbs have different spellings?
I have been wondering, why some japanese verb have a variety of ways to spell. Does it matter which spelling I used or does the variety of spelling serve a purpose. And if it doesn't matter, then why ...
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Rules and tools for assigning furigana
It often happens that I want to supply the furigana (振{ふり}仮{が}名{な}) for some kanji-containing word, but can't figure out the right assignment of the kana to the kanji.
To be clear, the problem here ...
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Quotation marks 「」 only sometimes being used for lines that are made in the first person?
For direct quotes (e.g. He said "_____", 彼は「＿＿＿」と言った), the quotes are seemingly always used. But in Japanese, it's also quite common to voice thoughts and feelings as if they are quotes ...
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Why can some words be written with or without okurigana? How do the uses differ?
What is the difference for word compounds that can exist with 送り仮名 and without and still retain the same pronunciation?
As an example:
巻き貝 と 巻貝
取り引き と 取引
If I'm correct, both of these are ...
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Why are some country names written in kanji and yet others are written in katakana?
I have seen kanji characters on maps referencing Germany, China, Italy, the United States of America, and various other countries, but many are written in katakana. Is there a reason for this?
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Why were hiragana and katakana never merged into one system?
I am familiar with the history of why these two writing systems were invented, and my question comes more from a modern practical standpoint.
In my understanding, hiragana and katakana both have same ...
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Special Kana in Man'yōgana?
Probably a dumb question, but I'm wondering how certain sounds would be represented in Man'yōgana. Places like Wikipedia have charts that show the normal Kana and their kanji equivalents, but they don'...
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Is "入っ" still pronounced "はい" when reading it? (Okurigana question)
I am fairly new to reading kanji and grammar, and I just learned that "入る" is pronounced "はい" because it is an okurigana. My question is, are all okurigana pronounced in their &...
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Difference between the usage of 君 and キミ
From what I read earlier, 君【きみ】 can be used for "you". But in many instances over the Internet, I have seen キミ being used instead of 君【きみ】. What is the usage difference between the two?
If I ...
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Is there a reason why numbers in Japanese are delimited into blocks of four?
As I understand, Japanese numbers are divided into blocks of four, so while we would think of the number 89123889 as 89,123,889, in Japan they would think of it as 8912,3889 (八千九百十二万三千八百八十九). So ...
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Why is ゴミ箱 written in katakana usually?
I know katakana can be used for loanwords, onomatopoeia, strange plants, animals, for emphasis, and more. However, I don't understand why ゴミ箱 is written in katakana. Can anyone shed some light on the ...
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What phonetic shorthands (like 〼, 〆) are there in Japanese?
I recently learned that the symbol 〼, called 枡記号【ますきごう】, can be used as a phonetic shorthand for ます, as in 豆腐あり[〼]【ます】. In a similar vein, I am aware that 〆 is used as a shorthand for しめ in 〆切【しめきり】 = ...
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Why are there no unique voiced kana?
If one were to look at the 万葉仮名 article on Wikipedia, they would find that no specific marks were added to represent the bunch, that is, the ザダガバ 行, with there having been different representations ...
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Why is the イ段 used for 拗音, as opposed to, say, the ア段?
Is there some specific reason or logic that came behind this, or was it simply because everybody thought it was the best representation for the sounds that create the words that use ゃゅぇょ?
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How to say the vertical vowel extension line in Japanese?
I'm learning katakana these days and my book introduces the horizontal line which is use to lengthen a vowel sound as in internet inta-netto
My book says this line is called yoko bou which I can find ...
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Was the writing system used in the Empire of Japan (大日本帝国) called 真片仮名?
So, today I encountered the claim on Wikipedia
Shinkatakana (真片仮名, mana and katakana): mixed script including only kanji and katakana.
Wikipedia doesn't list a source for this claim.
This sounds to ...
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Why would one use 当て字?
I came across 当て字 in my N1 vocabulary list, and while I think I understand what it is from the definition "kanji used as a phonetic symbol, rather than for its meaning", I'm not sure what the point of ...
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Is writing the "wa particle" as は a modern convention?
Recently, I was given a copy of Complete Course of Japanese Conversation-Grammar by Oreste and Enko Elisa Vaccari. As it dates back to 1967, I was expecting at least a few things to be a bit old-...
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Why is こおり spelt with an お rather than an う?
I thought that syllables with an "お" sound get lengthened by an "う" rather than another "お".
I've seen this question asked on hinative, which mentions 遠い（とおい）, 大きい (おおきい), 多い (おおい), 通り (とおり/どおり) and ...
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gemination orthography
In this sentence
ミサイルは高【たか】さ100kmより低【ひく】い所【ところ】を東【ひがし】に750km飛【と】びました
The missile flew 750 kilometers east at a height lower than 100 kilometers.
appearing here
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/...
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What does "オレ" in Pokemon Opening song mean?
The lyric says:
オレはこいつと 旅に出る
I wonder what オレ means. Is it a different way to write: "俺"?
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How does one write out "1km" -- in hiragana or katakana or both?
This sentence on NHK's Easy News got me wondering:
Uの字【じ】のような形【かたち】をしていて、直径【ちょっけい】は1kmぐらいです
It is shaped like a U and is about 1 km in diameter.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10013205991000/...
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Do these three words have the same meaning?「そーじ 」、「ソージ 」、「掃除」
These three words are pronounced the same, but do they also have the same meaning?
そーじ
ソージ
掃除
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Why do Japanese people read Classical Japanese with a set of weird sound shifts?
I'm learning a bit of Classical Japanese recently, and of course the spelling of words is pretty different, due to sound changes over the centuries. For example, きょう was spelled けふ. That I can ...
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Is 芸姑 a real word?
Do IMEs offer gibberish non-words when they make suggestions?
I know that there's many words that have the same pronunciation, and therefore users of IMEs have to choose the correct one. I think 感じ (...
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Blank line in balloon
While reading manga, I noticed sometimes in a balloon there is an extra empty line, like here:
Which meaning does it carry? I'm wondering if it's meant to separate the two sentences, like saying that ...
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Is it possible to tell whether a word is kanji or hiragana without reading it?
Is it possible to tell whether a word would be written in kanji or if it would be written in hiragana without actually reading it, like it is reasonably easy to tell if a word is likely to be written ...
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In which year of education is the 々 symbol taught?
A very similar question was asked here: Does 々 have a kanji grade level?
but in the end the main question haven't really been answered, and the best answer was "you don't need to know".
Well,...
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Does Japanese have characters in small size and in capital size?
In English it's normal for the sentence to start with a capital letter. In German also. Additionally, there are classes of words that are written in German with an initial capital letter.
How is it in ...
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Rules to leave spaces between words when using kanji and kana
I'm trying to understand when I should leave blanks (spaces) between Japanese words when using either kana or kanji.
My understanding is that blanks should be left when otherwise the text is confusing....
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How to express action (in plays, and online)
So in most languages we can either put text in italics or between asterisks to indicate what the speaker is doing. For instance:
Looking up
It will be raining soon
Or on the Internet:
*chewing your ...
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How has Japanese kanji and kana usage changed since 1945?
How has the percentage of writing using each script changed since 1945? With script reform, increasing influx of loanwords, and stylistic choices, several factors affect how much certain parts of the ...
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In what unit is the length of Japanese texts measured?
In English, we measure the length of texts in words. 1,000 words for the average college essay, 50,000 for something like a fiction novel.
I’m wondering what unit is used to measure Japanese texts. I’...
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How to understand usage of ツ in words with a closed syllable?
We have words ペット、ベッド、ファックス、ピクニック.
The symbol ッ usually is indicated for doubling consonants or to indicate a closed syllable.
The question is why the word post (ポスト) was written without ッ before ト?
...
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How to write "hasami"
I've seen the word for scissors "Hasami" written in hiragana " はさみ" katakana "ハサミ" and kanji "鋏". which is the most common?
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Different writing of the kanji 誤?
Good day, I've just noticed that the kanji 誤, while displayed almost everywhere that way, when pasted in my Anki deck, suddenly changes into (see picture below)
I can't get it to display anywhere else ...
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What is the meaning of 巻ノ + number next to a book?
What is the meaning of 巻ノ + number next to a book?
I know that
巻 = volume
ノ = ?
七十二 = 72
So it's Volume [?] 72
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