39
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Why does "fu" changes to "pu" while it's not started with "h"?
The //h// line in the kana are a bit odd. This is mostly due to history.
Derivation
Way back at the beginning of Japanese history -- and by that, I mean when we first start seeing text in the ...
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17
votes
Why is "Wikipedia" written as ウィキペディア instead of ワィキペディア?
ウィ is the standard way of transcribing [wi] or [wɪ]. Similarly ウェ is used for [wɛ] (for example website → ウェブサイト) and ウォ for [wɒ] or [wɔ] (for example wombat → ウォンバット or walkman ウォークマン).
Here ウ is ...
- 48.3k
14
votes
Accepted
What constitutes a syllable?
The general method of counting in Japanese poetry is by a rhythmic unit known as the mora (morae or moras in plural). A mora is (essentially) the length of a single (full-sized) kana; so is a bit ...
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13
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Is it acceptable to use kanji and hiragana in the same word if a kanji character is unknown?
There's a few different things going on in your question:
A general question about whether you can write words in mixed kanji kana orthography
An implicit question about when you can / cannot do so.
...
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11
votes
Difference between the two "o" kana, and how to input them from romaji keyboard?
を is actually inputted as "wo", and should technically be pronounced as such as well, but that kana is almost completely unused except for the particle for verbs. And for a complicated reason, the ...
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11
votes
Accepted
What does かぎのあるヱ mean?
I think it means "the e with the hook". If you compare エ with ヱ, ヱ has a hook in the first horizontal.
Flaw♦
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11
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What are these Okinawan kana-like characters?
In this webpage 沖縄の言葉で書かれた注意書きがわからなすぎる, there is the following picture:
Comparing this one with the one in your post makes me think that maybe it is just your picture is missing some paint.
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10
votes
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what is the dakuten katakana character in the image?
It's グサ, a common onomatopoeia for a sound of "stab". It also describes how someone's harsh word sticks into your heart. It's listed on jisho.org in the form ぐさりと.
It looks like ワ, too, but ワ does ...
- 330k
9
votes
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Are those kanas "しい" ? (text found on a banner)
Yes, it is しい. There is a bit of a play-on-words happening here.
[禿]{は}げ means "bald(ness)", but is being written in katakana on the top line (ハゲ[頭]{あたま}). The entire bottom row says ハゲ〜しい[熱戦]{ねっ・せん}...
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9
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Why is the katakána ヲ taught to beginners?
ヲ and ヰ/ゐ/ヱ/ゑ are different both in terms of standard-ness and frequency.
ヲ is a contemporary standard katakana taught in the first grade (and actually recognized by most kindergarteners before ...
- 330k
8
votes
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Why does ちょうし translate to "choushi"?
ちょ is what we call a digraph; notice that the よ is small, not full-sized. If you wanted to write "chiyoshi," it would have to be ちようし, not ちょうし. I'm not going to list every digraph and their ...
- 2,389
8
votes
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Why was つ originally used to mark consonant gemination? When was that?
Short summary: Heian-period Japanese acquired new sounds, including a syllable-final -t, a geminated tt, and other geminated consonants. The つ kana, originally tu, was a natural match to write the new ...
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8
votes
Unknown kana in a late C19th address cartouche
Per l'électeur's response above, 北ミ:
北, kita
and ミ, mi
三, mi
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8
votes
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Kanjied 出した vs kananed だした in -dasu/dashta pattern
The canonical rule is as follows:
Use hiragana for a subsidiary verb following a te-form, e.g., (持って)いく, (読んで)みる, (作って)おく
Use kanji for the second component of a compound verb, following a 連用形, e.g., ...
- 330k
8
votes
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Is this heavily stylized text readible?
No, even native speakers cannot read this. As istrasci says, the blue part is more like タツノン. People can probably identify most katakana in the red part, but it's almost impossible to recognize フランキス ...
- 330k
7
votes
Do Japanese people see ツ as a smiling face?
I know this is an old post, and I'm not Japanese, but I did some research and I found out this:
Japanese don't look at the mouth to notice emotions, rather the eyes. Since the "eyes" here are ...
7
votes
Can't find this character in the dictionary
This is the hiragana そ. You may be confused because of the font.
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votes
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How to refer to kana verbally
We usually call individual hiragana by its pronunciation. If it can be confusing, we can clarify that we're talking about hiraganas by saying, for example, "ひらがなの「あ」".
When we have to confirm that ...
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7
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What is the order of the full list of kana?
The dictionaries I have use the following order. (From the publishers 小学館, 三省堂 and 学研.)
The usual lexicographic order by gojūon, mostly ignoring whether a kana has (han)dakuten or is a small kana.
(...
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6
votes
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Old Japanese vowels in kana
Good question. The poster is referring to the reconstructed 8-vowel system for Old Japanese (上代特殊仮名遣) which is inferred from the presence of two ways of transcribing /e/ and two ways of transcribing /...
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6
votes
Why is there dakuten on the "ん" in this image? (ん゙)
My Research:
So my reasearch has been a little bit unusual for this one, but I found the following from reddit's r/learnjapanese:
Dakuten/handakuten on kana where they would normally not be found ...
- 7,109
6
votes
Why is "Wikipedia" written as ウィキペディア instead of ワィキペディア?
Rather than providing a pronunciation closer to the English word, it provides a description of the Japanese pronunciation.
The Japanese W sound is essentially spoken by moving from a うto a second ...
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6
votes
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After a Katakana word then "tto" are both Hiragana or Katakana acceptable for the Sokuon?
There is no prescriptive rule that covers where to end the katakana section when you write mimetic words, interjections and slang words in katakana (because they are colloquialisms anyway), so we don'...
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6
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Popular "random" strings
Where did you see bxdrpcqazwsui1? It is not a truly random string. It's what you get when you try to input こさしすせそたちつてとなにぬ (a part of Japanese alphabet) using a Japanese keyboard with the English mode ...
- 330k
5
votes
Accepted
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