In Japanese, the symbols ゝゞヽヾ are iteration marks for kana (hiragana and katakana). They work just like 々 works for kanji, by repeating the character that precedes them, except that, while 々 is commonly used, ゝゞヽヾ are rarely used in modern Japanese.

Note: if you saw ヽ in the furigana space, that's probably an emphasis mark instead.

The differences between the five symbols are pretty simple:

• 々 is used with kanji.
• ゝ and ゞ are used with hiragana.
• ヽ and ヾ are used with katakana.
• ゞ and ヾ add a dakuten ゛ accent.
• ゝ and ヽ remove the accent.

The symbols ゝゞヽヾ are called ichi-no-ji-ten 一の字点, "character mark [that looks like] 一," but they're also known by the same names 々 has: kurikaeshi 繰り返し, odoriji 踊り字, etc.

In Japanese, the small katakana ke ケ, ヶ, is a bit different from the other small kana, in that it's not usually read ke, but instead as ka か, ga が, or even ko こ. Similar to how the small tsu っ isn't read as tsu つ.

For example, ni-ka-getsu 二ヶ月 is how you say "two months," as in counting the months. It's not read ni-ke-getsu despite having a ke in the middle.

In Japanese, bouten 傍点, "side marks," are dots written in the furigana 振り仮名 space that express emphasis. They work like italicized text, or bold text. To emphasize a phrase, every pronounceable character of the phrase gets a dot beside it—punctuation doesn't get dots.

In Japanese, sometimes words are separated by a middle dot, a ・, also called an interpunct, or interpoint, or nakaguro 中黒, "middle black [mark]," nakaten 中点, "middle dot," nakapotsu 中ぽつ, "middle spot," nakamaru 中丸, "middle circle, " etc. But what does this ・ mean in Japanese?

Well, it has multiple functions.

• Pause Function
• How to Translate
• Separating Parallel Terms
• Separating Katakana Words
• Descriptions and Titles
• Ellipsis
• Other Usage
• How to Type

In Japanese, sometimes words are spelled using numbers. A sort of goroawase 語呂合わせ wordplay originally used in pager codes.

For example, 39 mean "thank you," 893 means yakuza ヤクザ, 4649 means yoroshiku よろしく, 084 means ohayo おはよ, 0833 means oyasumi おやすみ, 3470 means sayonara さよなら, and so on.

• Rules
• Translations
• History
  
  • Pocket Bell
    
    • Evolution
    • Japanese High School Girls are Scary

Since I've posted a bunch of these already, here's a list of Japanese words containing English (Latin) alphabet letters, and the respective posts which talked about them. (in no particular order)

Some of these are wasei-eigo, meaning they're made up in Japan but out of English words. Some of these are abbreviations used in English too which I included because why not.

Note that since these terms are used in Japanese, the letters are pronounced in Japanese too. See katakanized English letters for how to pronounce them.

OVA
Original Video Animation. (wasei-eigo.)
Anime that's originally sold on VHS, videotape, discs, instead of airing on TV.

ONA
Original Net Animation. (wasei-eigo.)
Anime originally streamed instead.

OAD
Original Animation Disc. (wasei-eigo.)
Anime originally bundled with manga volumes as a bonus disc.

NEET (niito ニート)
Not in Employment, Education or Training.
(not wasei-eigo, but used mostly in Japan, originally from UK, it seems.)

NG. (enujii エヌジー)
Not Good. (wasei-eigo.)
(can't air on TV, "triggers me," etc.)

One question people learning Japanese may have is: does Japanese have spaces between words like English? The answer is: no, not really, but sort of, yes.

Most of the time, Japanese does not use spaces between words. All words are written without any sort of explicit division between them. The only thing in common with English is that words aren't broken in the middle when a line ends; lines often end in a word and start with another word.

You may think this is insane because, after all, how would you be able to tell the words apart without spaces?! But in Japanese you can tell the words apart based solely on the alphabet used to write them (hiragana, katakana or kanji) and on certain word patterns you get used to after a while, so spaces aren't really necessary in the written language.

However, there are still cases where a space is put between words in Japanese, rare cases, yes, but they exist.

For reference, a basic chart containing the romaji of hiragana and katakana.

One huge question people tend to have about Japanese is: why is the particle wa は pronounced wa わ despite the wa particle being written as ha は? And while we're at it, why is the particle e へ pronounced e え despite being written as he へ? And the particle wo を which sounds like o お anyway?! Why are these particles pronounced differently from what you'd expect?!

If you have started learning Japanese you might have noticed or been told that the hiragana ha は is sometimes pronounced wa. This is even there's already another hiragana specifically for the syllable wa わ. So how can you tell if は is pronounced wa or ha in a phrase? Is there even a way? Is it really that confusing all the time?

The first thing you should get acquainted with if you are beginning to learn Japanese is the way Japanese is written. Here are some posts to help you understand with the Japanese writing system:

In Japanese, 「」 and 『』 are "quotation marks," in'youfu 引用符. They work in a similar but different way to English quotes ("these ones"). Not to be confused with brackets 【】, which this article will also talk about.

In Japanese, there are two types of tsu characters. The normal tsu つ, and the small tsu っ, which is smaller. You can notice this in hiragana in words like mittsu みっつ, "three," and in katakana in words like nattsu ナッツ, "nuts." But how does this small tsu works? What is っ for? And what is it called?

• About The Small Tsu
• Small Tsu in Romaji
• How to Pronounce The Small Tsu
• Small Tsu in Japanese Words
• Small Tsu at The End of Sentences
• Small Tsu at The Start of Sentences
• Difference Between っ and ー
• How to Type The Small Tsu っ

In which direction is Japanese written and read? Is it left to right, top to bottom like English? Or is it something else?

The answer is both, actually. On the internet, Japanese is written horizontally, left to right, top to bottom, just like English. Traditionally, however, Japanese is written vertically, top to bottom, then right to left, which from an English perspective makes it look like it goes backwards (from right to left). Lastly, there are also rare cases when it looks like Japanese is written horizontally but backwards.

The kana in the Japanese hiragana can be easy to confuse sometimes. There's mi み, ro ろ and ru る, and they all look like 3's, but luckily it stops there, right? Except when you encounter the rare wi ゐ and we ゑ which are hiragana too and look like some weird versions of first three! Just what are those kana? Since when do they exist? Weren't the kana in the w row just wa わ and wo を?!

One of the most artistically inspired symbols in the Japanese language is the prolonged sound mark. It looks like a longer horizontal dash, or a vertical line in vertical text. Like this:ー. And it performs a very simple function in writing: to make sounds longer.

• Appearance in Text
• How To Type ー
• What Is ー Called in Japanese
• Long Vowels in Japanese
• Pronunciation Rules for Prolonged Sounds
• Difference Between ああ and あー
• When to Spell a Word With ー
• When Spelling Things Wrong is The Right Way
• Usage With Differentiated Speech

If you have been reading manga for a while you might have encountered this very strange kana: ヴ. The obvious problem with it is that it is an u う in katakana, u ウ, but it has a "diacritic," or tenten, ヴ. You don't put diacritics in aiueo アイウエオ, only in certain syllables like kakikukeko カキクケコ to make them gagigugego ガギグゲゴ, right? So the ヴ kana makes no sense, and yet it exists.

In Japanese, the 々 symbol means the kanji 漢字 that comes before it should be repeated, e.g.: 人々 is the same as 人人, the 人 kanji twice. It's called noma ノマ, kurikaeshi 繰り返し, among other names.

If you've been learning Japanese for some time you might have heard about the so-called "kanji radicals," or bushu 部首, and wondered exactly what is so radical about kanji? Do they practice skate-boarding? Bungee-jumping? No? Then what's the meaning of "kanji radicals" after all?

When you start learning Japanese, more specifically, the kanji 漢字, the day always arrives when you hear something about the readings kun'yomi 訓読み and on'yomi 音読み but you still have no idea what they exactly mean. So, in this post, I'll explain what is kun'yomi, what is on'yomi, and what's their importance in the language.