Questions tagged [orthography]
正書法. The standard way of writing the language.
269
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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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Are the names of some food items written in katakana?
Japanese for Busy People 1 (lesson 11) mentions when talking about [キス]{kisu} (whiting) at a [てんぷらや]{tempura-ya}:
NOTE: Names of fish, fruits and vegetables etc. are sometimes written in katakana.
...
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2
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What romanization scheme is used by programmers?
I noticed that in this book on bioinformatics with Ruby (the programming language!) (Rubyではじめるバイオインフォマティクス―生物系のためのプログラミング入門), the authors sometimes used romanized Japanese in code examples. For ...
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Is Japanese that lacks proofreading likely to contain bad spelling or grammar?
Regarding written English that isn't proofread ... it's quality definately leaves alot to be desired. I would advise people against treating written English that wasn't professionally written (for ...
6
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1
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11
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Are foreign personal names usually written in katakana rather than Romaji?
Are foreign personal names usually written in katakana, or is this dependent on the type or writing, and the target audience? For example, this Japanese Wikipedia entry on Steven Bradbury uses ...
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29
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4
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Distinguishing certain characters in handwriting and print (Similar-looking Kana and Kanji)
Japanese has some sets of characters which look very similar or even identical. Obviously, context is usually more than enough to distinguish which character is intended, but I'm wondering if there ...
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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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3
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Can I write Japanese name "Midori" this way - 緑?
There is female Japanese name "Midori," and I want to know the ways I can write it. I know it means "green," but maybe the name and "green" are different words sometimes.
I used google-translator to ...
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What is the learning curve for learning Japanese writing?
What is the learning curve like for learning Japanese writing?
Are you able to use what you've learnt as you're progressing, or are you only realistically able to start reading real text once you've ...
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Which is the "official" kanji for さい, 歳 or 才?
Well if I'm not wrong, usually when a word has multiple kanjis one of them is selected as the "main" or more commonly used one.
But is it true that 才 and 歳 are both the "main" kanji for さい?
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Do Japanese writers use underline for emphasis?
Do Japanese writers use underline to emphasize a point, or other techniques? Wikipedia mentions the use of katakana in its article on Emphasis and in its article on Katakana, but I'm not sure whether ...
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4
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What does the little っ (tsu) signify when at the end of a word?
The small っ (tsu) is usually used before a consonant to indicate gemination, less technically known as doubled consonants, which is how they are transliterated in romaji.
I have seen it at the end of ...
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Use of the question mark and か
I was surpised to hear from a Japanese coworker that using a question mark "?" (gimonfu) after the か particle is correct Japanese.
Which of these are NG?
何時に会いましょうか
何時に会いましょうか？
何時に会いましょう？
In what ...
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What are the differences between じ and ぢ, and ず and づ?
The Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries can mostly be described as phonetic. But there are two exceptions, the two pairs of syllables modified to be voiced with the dakuten diacritic which ...
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2
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Is there a logic for deciding when to employ furigana?
I'm vaguely aware that the usage of furigana is based on the intended target audience. The younger or less likely literate the target audience the more furigana are employed. But is there a system to ...
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The many ways to write {かっこいい}
Apparently there are so many ways to write {かっこいい}.
Hiragana/katakana only:
かっこいい
カッコいい
カッコイイ
EDICT:
格好いい
かっこ好い
Other possible variants:
格好良い
かっこ良い
カッコ良い
格好好い
恰好いい (notice ...
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6
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Arabic numbers: half-width or full-width?
Using my computer, I type a lot of numbers in Japanese text, and I am not sure when to use half-width or full-width.
Are there rules?
Right now I only use half-width, is it fine?
Off-topic: Here is ...
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About writing numbers using Japanese numerals vs using Arabic numerals
I noticed that even though Japanese language has kanji characters for numbers (e.g. 十、百、千、万 etc), there are many places where Arabic numerals are used instead, for example, prices for shop items are ...
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