Difference between ソ and ン

[ヤマザキ2]

I for the life of me cant tell the difference between these two most of the time both when it is written and typed if I have never seen the word before...

Any tips?

 

[Tsuyoiko]

I had trouble with these as well, until I found this site:

Katakana Writing Tutor

 

[-Rudel-]

It's difficult! The only I know, is if I see it written in a traditional style. I need to see the brush stroke, whether it is up, or down.

 

[lexico]

font bug is

Difference between ソ /so/ and ン /N/

Interesting question, Yamazaki. According to what I've seen, the two katakanas look similar in the 2nd strokes, but the width of the strokes go from thick to thin as Rudel points out. But even without looking at the strokes being written, the direction of the stroke is reflected as a general tapering from thick to thin.

From Tsuyoiko's kana brush stroke link, it can be seen that whereas the 2nd stroke of SO moves from top-right thick to bottom-right thin, the 2nd stroke of N moves from bottom-left thick to top-right thin. All the following fonts for N in the system, therefore are incorrect, and the difficulty you've been having was not your fault at all but the fontographer's mistake ! I might suggest you contact the software designer for a correction in the system font which should be possible without a major revision.

product: vBulletin Version 3.0.7 / mfr. Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

system default font: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Arial: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Book Antiqua: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Century Gothic: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Comic Sans MS: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Courier New: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Fixedsys: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Franklin Gothic Medium: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Garamond: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Georgia: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Impact: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Lucida Console: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Microsoft Sans Serif: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Palatino Linotypeソ /so/ and ン /N/
System: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Tahoma: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Times New Roman: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Trebuchet MS: ソ /so/ and ン /N/
Verdana: ソ /so/ and ン /N/

<table 1. Why font designers must learn calligraphy before designing fonts>
All the N's ン should be corrected to N esp. in the bold fonts.

 

[Gaijinian]

I think what lexico is saying is it is easy to tell the difference: N is ALWAYS red.
Sorry, I had to do that... :sorry:

 

[ヤマザキ2]

Thanks for the quick reponse guys.

I know about the thick part of the katakana indicating weather its so or n, being n has the thick part on the bottom and so having the thick part on the top, but 99.9% of the time when looking at the font on the computer and handwriting its extremly hard to tell.

Lexico, thanks for poining out that is at least in part not my fault and the fault of the fontographer not doing the font correctly, but there still must be some trick cause i've talked to japanese people and they can easily tell the different even when reading typed out fonts... or maybe its just because they know all the words already and just know if its so or n by memorization?

 

[lexico]

You are not alone

Thanks for the humor, Gaijinian ! Why not ask the Japanese gov't to abolish the black N's and to implement red N's as a legal requirement as a way to make up for the decades of 'profound and widespread' discrimination against foreigners ! :embarasse

99.9% of the time when looking at the font on the computer and handwriting its extremly hard to tell.

Reading handwritten text with even width strokes as made with a pen or pencil can indeed become tricky. Ask them to write in brush if possible.

Lexico, thanks for pointing out that is at least in part not my fault and the fault of the fontographer not doing the font correctly, but there still must be some trick cause i've talked to japanese people and they can easily tell the different even when reading typed out fonts... or maybe its just because they know all the words already and just know if its so or n by memorization?

You're welcome: the standard fonts in the so-called 'GOTHIC' ( ゴシック 活字 かつじ or ゴチック 活字 かつじ ) will tend to look thicker in the vertical-running part and narrower in the horizontal-running part when some low quality bolding is in force; this becomes a problem with systems using such even width fonts and said bolding schemes.

The trick is called redundancy; a person experienced with Japanese text in katakana will in most cases be able to tell by 1) position ('so' as a syllable can come in any place within a word whereas 'N' can come only at the end of a syllable), 2) vocabulary, or 3) grammar. Either of the three would exclude most occurrences by context. Although there might be some interesting jokes playing on the similarity, it's certainly one regrettable feature for beginners like me ! I guess the classical answer would be... familiarize, familiarize, familiarize.

 

[lexico]

This problem was discussed last year !

How in the hell do you guys tell ソ ンand シ ツ apart? | Japan Forum