Questions tagged [orthography]
正書法. The standard way of writing the language.
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when should one use 支払い or 支払
In lots of contracts I see the word 支払.
When should one use 支払 instead of 支払い?
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Japanese student learning Chinese characters? [closed]
I've recently started to self-study Japanese. Some time ago I thought of studying Mandarin Chinese and bought a book (Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/805242....
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Should I use 言う or いう in "はどういう意味ですか"?
On page 33 of the Lonely planet phrasebook for Japanese, 5th edition (ISBN 978-1-74104-231-3), the phrase given is
What does 'deguchi' mean?
「出口」はどういう意味ですか？
The pronunciation guide has
de-gu-chi wa ...
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Academic/historic attempts to create an alternative writing system similar to Hangul?
I was reading upon Japanese writing system history and found out there were several attempts to abolish the use of 漢字 in favor of kana or romaji, e.g. after the WWII. All of those failed, and the only ...
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Why is じどうしゃ (jidoushiya), jidōsha instead?
From what I understand, the hiragana characters above should make the word jidoushiya, but for some reason it is actually jidōsha.
Why did the word change this way even though the characters are:
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Writing jukugo where only some kanji are known [duplicate]
Having studied Japanese for two years so far, there are many instances of vocabulary that I have learned but for which I know [the 書き方 of] only some of the kanji that make up the word. Is there any ...
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横書きと縦書き Is there a preference for usage?
横書きと縦書き Is there a preference for usage? I noticed that Japanese is written horizontally and vertically.
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When is it appropriate to use what alphabet?
I'm very new to Japanese, and I was wondering when is it appropriate to use what alphabets? I've been practicing entirely in hiragana thus far, and I know that katakana is for foreign words and sounds,...
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What do the Long vowel rule and Palatalized long vowel rule represent?
In relation to the Classical Japanese orthography what are the Long vowel (長音 Chōon) rule and the Palatalized long vowel (開拗長音 Kaiyōchōon) rule?
What would be some examples of them?
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How to write long sound to emphasize words?
For example, I want to emphasize the word しらない by saying shiiiiiranai, しいいいらない seems a little bit weird to me. How do you write this in japanese character, can we also write this in the form of kanji?
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日本人は日本語で番号を書くなら、アメリカの小数点かヨーロッパのを書きますの？
皆さん、こんにちは！
日本人は日本語に番号を書くことを学びますなら、
アメリカ風の小数点(1.0)か、ヨーロッパ風の(1,0)を書くことを学びますか？
日本語だけで尋ねてみたいですよ。
でも私の日本語もよくないんで、すみません。:)
ありがとう！:D
エディット:今、日本語だけで、英語じゃないです。
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Reduction of the diphthong "ou" to "ō" in Middle and Modern Japanese
I noticed that in the word 子牛 both "o" and "u" are pronounced while in the word 格子 there is a long "ō" and they are, respectively, written in rōmaji (Hepburn romanization) koushi and kōshi.
What I'd ...
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Using parentheses (=round brackets) with equals sign
First, I want to say that this is in no way to question the way somebody is writing. I'm just curious.
I have noticed that some Japanese people here use parentheses and an equals sign to clarify some ...
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Rules and phenomena about reading/writing words with kanji
I'm trying to learn Japanese but I'm the kind of person who can't really learn if they don't understand some of the mechanisms. I'm stuck when learning vocabulary because I can't just be like "OK this ...
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When was this Japanese standard and why this is so different from modern Japanese?
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Why is ダメ written most commonly in katakana?
I usually see the word written in katakana, although a kanji term is available, and wanted to know the reason.
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What exactly does くずし字 refer to?
I have been practicing and interested in calligraphy for a while. Recently I was looking in general for books on the subject and I often encountered this word: くずし字 (for example in books titles etc).
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Why is りんご written in hiragana?
I recently bought some apples and the term was written in hiragana.
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Do Roman numerals have on and kun readings?
I know that kanji numbers can be read using on and kun readings. Does the same apply to Roman numerals?
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Why are "loanwords" written in katakana?
I am interested in learning why katakana was chosen to represent foreign words.
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Can any other characters besides は and わ be used interchangeably at the end of words?
I have noticed that こんにちわ and こんにちは can be spelled differently and have the same meaning. Does this occur with any other character combinations at the end of words?
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Why are う and い used to prolong ~O and ~E, instead of お and え?
When was this rule to prolong short vowels added to Japanese?
And is there any formally accepted reason for using う and い instead of お and え? (which would seem like a more natural option, in my ...
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Is apple usually spelt as リンゴ in a culinary context? [duplicate]
I came across the sentence
あなたは1つのリンゴを食べます
on the English for Japanese speakers duolingo course. (I'm mainly doing it as dogfooding before suggesting it to a Japanese speaker learning English)
Is ...
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What's the meaning of 生き乍らへて / 生き乍らえて?
This is my first question on this site, so excuse me if I make any mistake.
I found this phrase in a text which uses pre-WW2 grammar (so I'm not entirely sure if it's [生き乍らへて]{いきながらへて} or 生き乍らえて due ...
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Tally Marks in Japanese?
In English, if we're tallying something on a piece of paper, etc., we usually write a vertical line to count 1, and then when you reach four of them, you cross it with a horizontal line to mean 5, and ...
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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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有り難う vs 有難う — Is this the same word?
Do both these words mean "thank you"? If both mean thank you why are they spelled differently? Is one more formal than the other?
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Which is more normal, "OK" or "オーケー"?
Which is more normal in Japanese, "OK", or "オーケー", assuming either of them is in common usage?
I tried using the corpus on jisho.org, but the results were messed up by "OK" appearing in the English ...
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Is there a term for whether kanji or kana is used?
Are there any terms (preferably used in English, but Japanese is also ok) about whether a word is written in kanji or in kana?
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How can I write "tchi"
As in title, how can I write "tchi" in katakana as in the word "hotchikisu" (paper fastener)?
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Can't find this character in the dictionary [duplicate]
I have been looking for the meaning of this
I can't seem to find its meaning. And I see it being used a lot.
Is it even a kanji, or is it just an expression?
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I'm unable to identify the last character in this picture
I'm unable to identify the last character in this picture, OCR software identify only the first 2.
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How do you write "Miranda" in Japanese? [closed]
I'm sure many people learning a language have written their name in that language. Before actively learning Japanese, I noticed that any translation website changed the spelling of my name. It went ...
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Should I write 此方 or こちら?
I wonder if it is too formal to use the kanji for such a common expression like this.
However, I like to write most Japanese words with kanji since I write college documents.
Additionally, what do ...
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Why are Japanese personal names pronounced the same but written differently?
For example, Michiko can be written several different ways. Last names can also be spelled differently.
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Why does some manga have dots above some of the words? [duplicate]
Potential spoilers for readers of Jojo, but in the top-left-hand corner of this picture there are dots above the word こいつ.
Why do some manga have dots above some of the words? I've only noticed this ...
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Is there any difference between writing the katakana カ and the kanji 力? [duplicate]
The two characters I'm talking about here is the katakana "ka" (カ) and the kanji 力 as in [入力]{にゅうりょく}.
Just by looking at the two characters in digital text form, they seem to be written in the same ...
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Why was つ originally used to mark consonant gemination? When was that?
I can't find the answer anywhere.
It seems that in manyougana consonant gemination was not marked in any way. And before the 1946 reform the normal size つ was used instead of the current smaller one....
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Why does the name of ハチ公 【こう】 include Katakana instead of Hiragana?
It seems strange because the name ハチ公 【こう】 combines Katakana and Kanji in one word.
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Which alphabet should I use when combining a Japanese word with an English word?
I know Japanese words are written with kanji and hiragana, and katakana is for foreign words and exclamations. But I want to write "yanderenee", which is yandere + renee (my name). Which alphabet ...
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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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Is there a reason why some questions have question marks and other don't?
In many things I read question marks are used after what is obviously a question, but sometimes they are not used (even though it is the same person who wrote it).
Is there a reason why, even stuff ...
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How to distinguish between different types of katakana words?
I'm a beginner with Japanese and have been practising katakana more recently and in doing so, I noticed that many—maybe most—times, the reason something is written in katakana is because it is derived ...
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What is this odd character?
It foiled 3 different online handwriting input websites. I tried looking it up via radicals to no avail. The rest of the characters in this font were quite easy to get.
As per request, the context.
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user15889
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Abbreviating sets of compounds with leading characters in common
I recently asked a question about on- and kun-yomi and in building the title guessed at how the two compounds involved could be contracted; landing on 「音・訓読み」.
Is this indeed the correct way of ...
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What are the most obscure kanji?
To my understanding, there are standardised kanji that have either:
No reliable information on how they are to be pronounced OR
No reliable information on what they mean OR
All of the above.
Do ...
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皆さんはどんな字を書いていますか？ / How do Japanese speakers write kana or kanji by hand?
日本語
この頃メタの方で「手書きの文字をチェックしてください」という質問は受け付けるべきかという話題がありました。個人的には受け付けてもよいと考えているのですが、何人もの学習者がわけもわからず同じような質問を繰り返すのでは生産性がない、という意見があり、これはその通りだと思いました。学習者は教科書などから字の書き方を学ぶと思いますが、初学者用の教科書体といえども、毛筆の運筆を残していたり、...
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How often do single dots stick to the top of kanji?
In Chinese, characters with a single dot on top stay separated from the rest of the character. (Eg. Chinese 宝)
In kanji, this is frequently not the case - virtually all 宀 characters I see have dots ...
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Is there a standard way to clearly differentiate similar handwritten (kana) characters?
In English, you often see people who write certain letters or numbers with an extra stroke to differentiate them from similar characters, for example people will write a z with a horizontal stroke to ...
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「星のカービィ」- Why ィ and not ー?
The Nintendo character Kirby's name in Japanese is 「星のカービィ」, pronounced "Hoshi no Kābī". For the カ, a ー is used for extending the vowel sound. For the ビ, though, a small イ is used.
I thought the ...
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