Question about kanji and hiragana

Usagi · 9 Sep 2004

Hi. I've sometimes seen sentences written in kanji and hiragana but on top of the kanji they put hiragana simbols. I don't know if someone knows what I mean... I've seen them mostly in anime.

Is the hiragana written on top of the kanji the translation of the kanji? I think that's what it is but I'm not sure..

Probably it's a silly question but I'm a beginner...

blessed · 9 Sep 2004

they are there in case someone can't read the kanji: the hiragana spelling of the kanji... for foreigners, young kids and other people.

PaulTB · 9 Sep 2004

blessed said:
they are there in case someone can't read the kanji: the hiragana spelling of the kanji... for foreigners, young kids and other people.

If it's not in a Japanese language text book it's not for foreigners. It's also quite often not because people might not be able to read the kanji. A significant amount of the time it will have the 'wrong' furigana.

For example
刑事 with デカ
理由 with わけ
風林館高校 with ここ
接吻 with キス
etc.

Elizabeth · 9 Sep 2004

I actually own a manga where it's the easiest, most elementary kanji given the most furigana. Because the text itself is very Edo-era dialectal, even a challenge for native speakers some are obviously to give older or alternate pronounciations, but others, such as these, are just random. :?

赤け（あけ）、
女性（ひと）
夫（ひと）
男（ひと）
三つ（みっつ）
前（まえ）
甲（こう）
依頼（おねがい）
幸福（しあわせ）

TronDD · 9 Sep 2004

Yeah, it's often used to portray a double meaning or a more specific description.

For example: In the manga I'm translating for practice (Narutaru) a pilot in a fighter is following an unidentified flying object. The object is about to come into the pilot's view.
The kanji reads someting like "visual confirmation" while the katakana over it reads "tallyho" as in "bingo, I see it".

Question about kanji and hiragana

Usagi

後輩

blessed

先輩

PaulTB

Manga Psychic

Elizabeth

先輩

TronDD

後輩

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