Japanese writing

Emlyn-J

Emlyn-J

February 10, 2011

I've now got my mind around the conventions/rules for using "Wa" and "Ha". In the lessons some words are given unborken in Ranji but then split in Hiragana. e.g. "Konnichiwa" in Ranji but then "Konnichi wa" in Hiragan. I'm noticing that this happens in a number of situtaions. What are the rules or conventions for this? This seems to happen regularly throughout the texts for the lessons. also In lesses 3.1 I've noticed the first use of a hyphen : "Fuji-san" what governs the use of the hyphen?
2679

2679

February 10, 2011

Well, in romanji, they sometimes stick the particles to the words. In "konnichiwa", the "wa"(は) acts as a topic marker here, not as a compound sound of the word. "kon" is the reading of the kanji for "now"(今), and nichi(日)=day => when saying konnichi you are actually saying now/this day. But by adding the topic marker, you add emphasis on this so it works like "good day/hello". For Fuji-san, it works the same, according to the kanji characters. you have the name: Fuji (ふじ) and the character for "mountain"(山). "san" is a reading of the 山 character. So in Japanese, it would be: ふじ山 (kana: ふじさん). This is considered to be one word so that's why it is written with "ー” when written in romanji. Hope this clears it up, コッド

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