Question about doubling last kana after the use of Kanji (for example こぼれ落ちた)

5 comments

1. where is that kanji pronounced ‘ochi’? my dictionary tells me it’s pronounced ‘o’ (combined with -chiru or -tosu)

   edit: okay, i found a couple of examples where it is ochi – but they’re the exception:

   落人

   落穂

   落研

   the rule is if there’s no ち or と after it then it’s usually pronounced ‘raku’

2. You’ll find soon enough that kanji has more exceptions than it does rules

3. The thing with *okurigana* (these are what you call the kana following a kanji) is that they are there only to help with reading. Meaning that a noun, which doesn’t change its form, does not need any okurigana and can be written all with kanji. Words that can be conjugated—chiefly verbs & adjectives, as well as any other word deriving from these—are divided into root + inflection, to show which part remains unchanged (e.g. 書・か) and which does not (～く、which can turn into か、き、け、こう、い etc.)

   Now, the problem with 落ちる (and many other word that have two, seemingly redundant kana) is etymological. The old form of this verb was 落つ and 落ちる was merely one of its conjugated forms, which centuries later took over, becoming the dictionary form. The spelling was kept since it differentiates the old word and its ‘traditional’ conjugation from the new, current one, which was important since in writing people were using old grammar much longer than in speech. Fun-fact: you can actually see 落る being used too now, by people who think that writing the extra ち is pointless now.

   You will encounter many such words as you go along, don’t worry about them much. It’s actually pretty helpful if that extra syllable is written out, because then you’ll know they likely follow the *ichidan*-conjugation pattern (aka Group 2 or いる／える ending)

4. Don’t try to pronounce kanji. Learn words. Patterns will emerge but it’s not how you read.

5. I think your misconception derives in part of misreading of that reading.

   おちる is a verb, which has had the kanji 落 assigned to it, which signifies it’s general meaning.

   The Kanji basically covers up part of the verb (in this case the お)

   I assume the reading was shown as お.ち, and the period indicates where the word stops being covered up by the kanji. So there is no second ち, it was always just an お behind that kanji.

   As others have mentioned, learning kanji by themselves instead of as part of words isn’t going to be particularly useful, **unless** you need to learn the isolated readings for some kind test.

   Btw, 落ち by itself is simply the verb stem of 落ちる.