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Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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Here's my question, why is there smaller sized characters on top of a certain word in the bigger sized sentence? I've got 2 examples, look at the subtitles in the images. My cousin told me they were to help you pronounce it right. So I'm guessing theres a lot of ways to pronounce the word written in bigger size? I dunno... weird... so complicated. Besides, I haven't learned japanese YET.   |
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Re: Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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by oturansama
on 2005-12-14 15:54:45
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| It is probably a uncommon kanja/word, so they wrote it out in kana. Alot of games, manga, etc., targeted at younger audiences, who may not know the particular kanji, do this. |
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Re: Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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I think it's to pronounce the kanji, which is basically characters, I guess...or simplified chinese, either way. In this case, it would probably be because it's unfamiliar, not the common kanji that people would know how to pronounce.  |
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Re: Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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| it is, it is! It's like subtitles for younger players... they do it in manga a lot, too. Sometimes people alter the way the kanji are pronounced, so that is required for proper reading. ^^ |
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Re: Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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What everyone else said. Some kanji are too hard for the intended target audience to understand, so hiragana... |
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Re: Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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yeap, i agree with all the replies below. but allow me to add another comment: some kanjis r read in a certain way originally, but the author decides to change its pronunciation or add a special meaning to the word. eg1: 水瓶座 is supposed to read "mizugameza", but some of them prefer to read in foreign language form, i.e. "aquarius". eg2: 宇宙 is supposed to read "uchuu", but some decides to give it a different definition, & therefore adds ã›ã‹ã„(sekai=world) on top.
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current favourite(s): niconico douga!!!!! |
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Re: Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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by night_link
on 2007-05-15 21:45:00
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| Don't say "Jap" |
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Re: Someone explain to me this Jap Character thing
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by
on 2007-05-17 22:28:55 (edited 2007-05-17 22:29:09)
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That is called furigana, to help read the kanji by putting hiragana or katakana above or beside the kanji (According to the orientation of the text). Read this for more information.   |