What are these shapes I am describing...?

LewiiG · 2 Aug 2013

Every now and then I see these circles in the middle of Japanese sentences. I've been meaning to ask what they were but haven't until now. IIRC I thought maybe they were meant to be gaps for input. If you don't know what I mean I'll get a picture next time I come accross it.

Also what is that X with two dots one on the left one on the right? Maybe there were more dots I can't remember. Again next time I see I'll get a picture if necessary. IIRC It looked like it was listing stuff.

Might not be enough info but these things are always on the back of my mind. Along with various other small Japanese related questions that I am probably forgetting even now.

Thanks for any answers. Lol if they were kanji.

SomeCallMeChris · 2 Aug 2013

You mean things like "あの◯◯◯野郎！絶対殺す！" ?
Sometimes circles block out some or all of the characters in a word to indicate that it's such a vulgar word that it's unprintable (like using #!@* or 'na*sty w*rd' in English. Sometimes they are used to block part or all of a number or address or name too, like 'I dialed Mr. M___ at 5__-2___ and he told me it was at 2__ Q___ Street' in English. And yes, sometimes they are used to indicate where the blanks are that you're supposed to fill in like "The capital of Japan is ____" in English.

The other symbol I'm not exactly sure about but it sounds like it might be a symbol I've seen that is used as an asterix and for the same reason - to get you to look down at the corresponding footnote. Something like ※ perhaps?

LewiiG · 2 Aug 2013

SomeCallMeChris said:
You mean things like "あの◯◯◯野郎！絶対殺す！" ?
Sometimes circles block out some or all of the characters in a word to indicate that it's such a vulgar word that it's unprintable (like using #!@* or 'na*sty w*rd' in English. Sometimes they are used to block part or all of a number or address or name too, like 'I dialed Mr. M___ at 5__-2___ and he told me it was at 2__ Q___ Street' in English. And yes, sometimes they are used to indicate where the blanks are that you're supposed to fill in like "The capital of Japan is ____" in English.

Yeah, that's the circle I'm on about. Thanks. Is it a circle per kanji/kana?

SomeCallMeChris said:
The other symbol I'm not exactly sure about but it sounds like it might be a symbol I've seen that is used as an asterix and for the same reason - to get you to look down at the corresponding footnote. Something like ※ perhaps?

Yes that is also the thing I was talking about. It seems to do the same thing as an asterix according to a wiki I just found. Thanks.

I have just found an instance of the circles where I don't see why it's blocked or what could go inside.

"スカートとニーハイソックスの挟間に存在する◯◯は？" is a question where I can choose one of three answers. I believe I know the answer to the question but I don't understand the question itself completely. I have "The ◯◯ that exists in the gap between knee high socks and a skirtは?" Assuming it attributes to ◯◯. I don't know what it could be blocking, and I don't see how inserting the answer would help here. So it looks like I need some light shed on the situation.

Also, were these typeable or did you copy and paste? Thanks.

Glenn · 2 Aug 2013

What are the answer choices?

Test -- 〇〇 (input: まるまる); ※ (input: ほし).

[Edit] Looks like inputting まる individually is how to get ○.

LewiiG · 2 Aug 2013

Glenn said:
What are the answer choices?

Test -- 〇〇 (input: まるまる); ※ (input: ほし).

[Edit] Looks like inputting まる individually is how to get ○.

Thanks 〇※ it works.

The answers are.

A.絶対領域
B.素敵空間
C.安全地帯

After typing each of them into google, only the lovely images of A seem fit the question.

Glenn · 2 Aug 2013

It seems like ○○ here is standing in for 物.

Yes, a Google image search certainly does seem to confirm that the answer is "A".

LewiiG · 2 Aug 2013

Yeah, I thought it would be something like that. But then I thought why would it be blocked out?

Toritoribe · 2 Aug 2013

Try also きごう. You can find so many symbols including Greek alphabet or Cyrillic alphabet.

I would be completely surprised if Glenn-san knows a specific meaning of 絶対領域 and can answer the question without knowing the three answers.

LewiiG · 2 Aug 2013

Toritoribe said:
Try also きごう. You can find so many symbols including Greek alphabet or Cyrillic alphabet.

Oh yeah. That's cool. Thanks for the tip!

Also, do you know why these "〇" things are being used in the way they are here? If they are indeed being substituted for 物, I must ask what is the point in doing so?

Glenn · 2 Aug 2013

Toritoribe said:
I would be completely surprised if Glenn-san knows a specific meaning of 絶対領域 and can answer the question without knowing the three answers.

I think I'm glad I didn't know it. That could have been embarrassing, or at least have required some explaining.

Toritoribe · 2 Aug 2013

LewiiG said:
Also, do you know why these "〇" things are being used in the way they are here? If they are indeed being substituted for 物, I must ask what is the point in doing so?

It's already answered by Chris-san.

Davey · 2 Aug 2013

To add some more shapes to it.

How to Type in Japanese (And Fun Characters Too!)

♪ おんぷ
■ しかく
→ やじるし
〒ゆうびん

I can't type all the other shapes though, not sure why. えもじはーととらんぷ etc aren't working.

Glenn · 2 Aug 2013

Which IME are you using?

LewiiG · 3 Aug 2013

Toritoribe said:
It's already answered by Chris-san.

Oh, it's one of the mentioned reasons. Okay.

But I can't see which reason it is. I doubt もの is vulgar, and it doesn't seem like it should be blocked for any morale reasons. Now that you've told me it's one of the three reasons, the only reason I can think of is if もの gives the answer away clearly somehow. If it does, in what way does it do so? Can't every answer be a もの?

Davey said:
To add some more shapes to it.

How to Type in Japanese (And Fun Characters Too!)

♪ おんぷ
■ しかく
→ やじるし
〒ゆうびん

Wow. Cool. I didn't realize you could literally type all these things and they show up. Thanks!

Glenn said:
Which IME are you using?

Davey said:
I can't type all the other shapes though, not sure why. えもじはーととらんぷ etc aren't working.

I'm using the Windows IME, and はーと and とらんぷ weren't working for me either, but I went into the Japanese IME properties and ticked the "symbol" dictionary under the dicitonary tab and then they worked. This was for the Windows IME anyway...
えもじ just doesn't work though. From what I've read it seems like it's not supported by Windows...

SomeCallMeChris · 3 Aug 2013

えもじ works on the Google IME for Windows; I don't have Baidu installed at the moment, but given all the support it has for smilies and such, I'd be surprised if it didn't support えもじ too. Those are both free.
I generated the circle with 「まる」 and the asterix with 「＊」.

In the Google IME ねこ has 36 possibilities ... around half are kana and kanji conversions... the rest are like (=^・・^=)

(That's weird. The symbols show correctly when I'm editing the post but not when I'm viewing it. I wonder if it's a font thing or an encoding thing.)

Toritoribe · 3 Aug 2013

LewiiG said:
Oh, it's one of the mentioned reasons. Okay.

But I can't see which reason it is. I doubt もの is vulgar, and it doesn't seem like it should be blocked for any morale reasons. Now that you've told me it's one of the three reasons, the only reason I can think of is if もの gives the answer away clearly somehow. If it does, in what way does it do so? Can't every answer be a もの?

sometimes they are used to indicate where the blanks are that you're supposed to fill in like "The capital of Japan is ____" in English.

This would be the writer's intention. Grammatically, it should be スカートとニーハイソックスの挟間に存在するのは？, as Glenn-san suggested, though.

LewiiG · 3 Aug 2013

SomeCallMeChris said:
ああああああ

えもじ works on the Google IME for Windows; I don't have Baidu installed at the moment, but given all the support it has for smilies and such, I'd be surprised if it didn't support えもじ too. Those are both free.
I generated the circle with 「まる」 and the asterix with 「＊」.

In the Google IME ねこ has 36 possibilities ... around half are kana and kanji conversions... the rest are like (=^・・^=) ああああ

(That's weird. The symbols show correctly when I'm editing the post but not when I'm viewing it. I wonder if it's a font thing or an encoding thing.)

I see, thanks. I'm going to give the Google IME a try...It's apparently more functional and intelligent than the built in Windows one.

Toritoribe said:
sometimes they are used to indicate where the blanks are that you're supposed to fill in like "The capital of Japan is ____" in English.

This would be the writer's intention. Grammatically, it should be スカートとニーハイソックスの挟間に存在するのは？, as Glenn-san suggested, though.

I was writing a really long post about how I didn't understand and was so confused but then In the midst of it all I think I figured out the answer...

スカートとニーハイソックスの挟間に存在する〇〇は? = The ____ that exists in the gap between knee high socks and a skirt is?

I was just not really seeing the relation with "The capital of Japan is ____" because the way of asking the question seems to be slightly different in Japanese. In English it isn't even a question, just a place to put an answer. In Japanese I don't think the answer is meant to be inserted into the question so I was confused when comparing it to English like this:

スカートとニーハイソックスの挟間に存在する絶対領域は? = The "Absolute area" that exists in the gap between knee high socks and a skirt is?

Which is kind of pointless when the answer is literally in the question. Am I thinking correctly now...? Hopefully at this point xD

Toritoribe · 3 Aug 2013

That's exactly the reason I wrote Grammatically, it should be スカートとニーハイソックスの挟間に存在するのは？.

Glenn · 4 Aug 2013

SomeCallMeChris said:
I don't have Baidu installed at the moment...

You use a Baidu IME for Japanese, or just typing emoji (<- this has become an English word now, btw)?

LewiiG said:
I see, thanks. I'm going to give the Google IME a try...It's apparently more functional and intelligent than the built in Windows one.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was going to suggest the Google IME, because it is far superior to Microsoft's.

LewiiG · 4 Aug 2013

Toritoribe said:
That's exactly the reason I wrote Grammatically, it should be スカートとニーハイソックスの挟間に存在するのは？.

Ah, I see. So that's what that meant. I misunderstood and thought something else...Thanks for finally making me realize. (And sorry for making you say the same thing multiple times xD).

I thank everyone for answering my questions and giving these suggestions

Glenn said:
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was going to suggest the Google IME, because it is far superior to Microsoft's.

Yeah, it seems so. Emojis and everything work as well now.

SomeCallMeChris · 4 Aug 2013

Glenn said:
You use a Baidu IME for Japanese, or just typing emoji (<- this has become an English word now, btw)?

I like to have Baidu installed because it has the best handwriting recognition interface in my experience, for those times I want to enter a character by drawing it. Sometimes I've used it as my primary IME for a while but I keep drifting back to Google, for various minor interface reasons.

Also, I believe the English for emoji is emoticon(s).

Glenn · 4 Aug 2013

SomeCallMeChris said:
I like to have Baidu installed because it has the best handwriting recognition interface in my experience, for those times I want to enter a character by drawing it. Sometimes I've used it as my primary IME for a while but I keep drifting back to Google, for various minor interface reasons.

I see. I have Sogou, which I can use to write characters with. It's also far superior to Microsoft's IME, although I've never used Baidu's, so I don't know how it compares to that.

Also, I believe the English for emoji is emoticon(s).

"Emoticon" is still used, I believe for the old ASCII versions like ": )" and "", etc., but "emoji" has most certainly entered the colloquial vocabulary of native English speakers in the US, at least, and its use seems to be more for the cartoon faces and symbols that can be input with the latest smart phones. It's been around for years. I was seeing it back when I was regularly on Tumblr, and that hasn't been for quite some time, and now it's all over Facebook too. I'm talking about people who can't tell spoken Japanese from Vietnamese using the word, too, so in that sense it's probably more English than "otaku" is, since that seems to be used only by people who are big into anime and at least know something about Japanese subculture if nothing else.

nekojita · 4 Aug 2013

顔文字 (kaomoji) is for the things like ＼(^o^)／ (=^・^=) etc (try "kaomoji" in your IME). You can see a huge number of them here. You can customise a IME dictionary to include extras if you really felt the need (instructions in Japanese on that site).

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