Ever seen the symbol 々 in Japanese and wondered what it means? It is called odoriji (踊り字), which literally means “dancing character”. Odoriji are iteration marks used to repeat the preceding kana/kanji/word or even numbers. For example, instead of writing 時時, you can simply write 時々 (tokidoki). While 々 is the most common, older texts feature other fascinating marks like ゝ, 〻,〳〵, and 〃. Learning about odoriji offers a glimpse into the language’s logic. #JapaneseLanguage #odoriji
Katakana
Non-English Katakana Words
In my previous lesson about Katakana, I listed down five situations when Katakana script is used over Hiragana or Kanji. In this post I would like to share some facts about 外来語 gairaigo. Katakana is mainly used when writing loanwords or 外来語 gairaigo like スピーチ (speech)、トマト (tomato) or パーティー (party) in Japanese. All these words are […]
Japanese Alphabets- Katakana Charts
Katakana is the Japanese script which is used to write loanwords. These words are not of Japanese origin or in other words, a Japanese term does not exist for them. Katakana consists of 5 vowels (ア、イ、ウ、エ、オ); 40 consonants and（ヲ) a katakana of the particle を(in hiragana), but it is almost never used. The consonants are […]