When I’m reading left to right it’s really easy for me to tell if it’s small or large because the height of the other characters are next to it. I’ve been struggling when it’s vertical though, since the height comparisons are a bit more difficult. Anyone have any tips or experienced the same difficulty?
by jonnycross10
18 comments
me too. i started reading in the both way to make sure it its small one or big
If there does exists words where the つ and っ both create a valid word, I think it’s down to getting used to the patterns you pick up over time. Naturally following words and phrases and context will reduce the need to look at the exact size of the つ. It’ll just take a lot of time and exposure.
That font on the left is just particularly bad for this. Generally the way you could tell is by the fact that the letters are always right-aligned, so you can kiiinda tell from how far left they go (you can see this pretty clearly with the furigana on the right box – that font actually makes it pretty clear). Now if you compare the highlighted そろった with the こいつ on the bottom right, you can see that in this font, big つ goes quire far to the left (actually clipping into the next line) while little っ doesn’t. But it’s still rather subtle.
Context can also help of course. In this case, the following もん means this has to be a verb, so it’s a past form, and that’s never つた but can definitely be った. That won’t always help of course, but sometimes it can.
The first, thankfully, is right next to a small ゅ so it’s easy to see the size difference.
The second looks like つ but only っ turns out to make a word. I do not like fonts like that.
Nah. It’s the font or bad images that trip me up.
Honestly you just have to pick it up via context, because only one version (っ or つ) will form a valid word.
In the furigana of the novels i’m reading, I’ve noticed that they often don’t even make the character smaller. I’m guessing it’s because it’s already in the furigana column so making it smaller would make it too hard to read? But yeah I’m trying to say that you can’t put your faith in the font
If I recall correctly pre-war Japanese had no concept of つ and っ. There was only つ and you just sort of had to know from context what it should be. Fortunately at some point as your Japanese improves you will also reach the point where your brain will sort of automatically pick up which should it be.
Unrelated, but I love the Prince of Tennis! You have taste😊
As a blind guy, yes. My sight gets worse everyday, and so does my literacy lmao
It’s like Roman fonts where the lower case L and the upper case I look the same. You’ll have to increase your grasp of the language to the point that you can instantly intuit what it is via context.
hasta que veo contenido de calidad en reddit jaja justo tengo el mismo problema つ
Dat prince of tennis
Weird that the two examples you showed were both the big Tsu. I think you will know
You’re telling me there’s a differene 😳
May I ask how one can access manga like this (one with Furigana)? As in, where can I read manga on my PC, tablet or phone? Thank you! I am learning Kanji (+ vocab) and grammar and something like this would be beneficial I think.
Do you know that the small tsu is actually pronounced, like a big tsu, in certain conversationally situations? It’s a bit of a joke, but people do it.
Where are y’all getting manga in Japanese?
I have a similar problem when it comes to ば、ぱ if it’s a furigana.
I could understand why this would be difficult to differentiate because of the font of the manga but you know what I really have a hard time with? [シ and ツ] , [ン, and ソ]. For the love of god I struggle to remember and I’ve been studying for two years. lol