Today let’s learn how to input some 記号（きごう：symbols）! We can also learn some new vocabulary along the way. I don’t know how to make tables but here you go:
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Original Kanji / Input kana / Resulting symbols
括弧 かっこ「」『』（）
中黒 なかぐろ ・
波 なみ ～
矢印 やじるし → ←
郵便 ゆうびん 〒
米印 こめじるし ※
丸 まる ◯ ◎ ○
罰 ばつ ✗
三角 さんかく △
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Note that the input for ◯ ✗ △ 〒 ～ are not the official names for the symbols, they are just descriptive words (circle, penalty, triangle, post, wave). The last three symbols are mostly useful for grammar instruction, but since this is a learning forum I figured I’d share.
印（しるし）is like “mark” and when attached to words it is often turned into じるし . The 矢（や）in 矢印 literally means “arrow”, like the kind you shoot. So now you learned a new word! Since you were probably wondering, 弓（ゆみ）is “bow” and the kanji looks wonderfully like its subject. The 米（こめ）in 米印 means “rice”, usually the uncooked kind. Notice how that kanji and symbol look similar? 米※
Did I make any mistakes? Feel free to correct me. Know any other useful symbols? Please share them below! Hope this helped!
12 comments
The funny thing is, I don’t have any particular issues hitting any of those. It’s just that my ability to type in rōmaji input feels a whole lot slower than my English typing despite knowing exactly what I’m going to type.
Really nice!
Instead of かっこ, you can also normally press the `[ ] ` keys and cycle through the candidate list for a lot of those special bracket symbols.
Thanks for the tips!
I usually just type 点 (てん) to get ・and it comes up right away 😜
Edit: Oh, and I type から to get 〜
Nakaguro comes up when you type a / on Windows IME. (Pretty sure it’s / not \)
An important tip: probably everyone knows that you can cycle through IME conversion options with Spacebar, but you can also cycle *backwards* by using Shift + Spacebar!
There’s also しかく for ◻, and for arrows, you can simply type うえ・した・ひだり・みぎ・ひだりうえ etc. to immediately get the direction you want.
In some IME’s (like Google’s), you can type きょう for example and get a list of different ways to format today’s date (e.g. today it’s 2022/06/16, 2022年6月16日, 令和4年6月16日). The same is true for typing things like きのう、あした、おととい、あさって、and probably others as well, like typing らいげつ right now shows 7月 as a possible conversion option. (This thing about the dates is actually the reason I switched from the default Microsoft IME and downloaded Google’s)
Then for fun, there’s also ながれぼし for ☆彡 and of course, かおもじ for a gigantic list of everyone’s favorite faces (´∀｀)ノ
the slash / key usually gives me a ・ when in japanese mode
I’ll add one, 締め しめ 〆
You’re unlikely to use it, but it turns up here and there so it’s good to know what it means. It’s “deadline” in most contexts, short for 締め切り
I just use all my math terms when I make notes.
Just wanted to make it a bit easier to read.
|Original Kanji|Input Kana|Resulting Symbols|
|:-|:-|:-|
|括弧|かっこ|「」『』（）|
|中黒|なかぐろ|・|
|波|なみ|～|
|矢印|やじるし|→ ←|
|郵便|ゆうびん|〒|
|米印|こめじるし|※|
|丸|まる|◯ ◎ ○|
|罰|ばつ|✗|
|三角|さんかく|△|
I’ll add, for arrows just type the direction you want to arrow then cycle
↓ した
↑ うえ
→ みぎ
← ひだり
Oh wow, I didn’t realize 矢印 was for the arrow symbol! I always thought it meant a physical arrow. This was really helpful. Thank you!