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Help Diacritical inflection when reading Kanji

Tappioka

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1 Jul 2017
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My problem seems to be fairly simple but I still can't find a very reliable answer on the internet. My main confusion is when one would change the inflection of the first syllable/mora of the word. For example, when I look up in the dictionary the kun/on readings for 川, it tells me the kun is 'kawa' and the on is 'sen'. However, I've also seen in some proper nouns such as the name 江戸川, is not read "えどわ/edokawa" but is read "edogawa/えどわ". I've also seen this happen in names with other characters. Is this something that is only done in proper nouns, or is it different? So far I've not been able to find anything that clarifies my problem.

I can provide specific names if that would be useful to those trying to help me.
 
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It's mainly something you pick up from repeated exposure. There is no hard and fast rule.
But some inflections such as "k" ⇒ "g" are fairly common. A regular noun example:
口 kuchi
改札口 kaisatsuguchi

For names you will typically need to ask to be sure.
For example I know two people by the name of 中島さん.
One pronounces it Nakashima and the other pronounces it Nakajima.
 
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