Talk:Dakuten and handakuten

It's my understanding that
no one used the maru until the Meiji era kana spelling reforms. Is this correct? --Carl 12:50, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In my high school Japanese class, we called them den-dens - is this used at all? Also, am I correct that づ is read "du" or "tzu"? I think it's pretty rare, but should it be listed in the table here? MC MasterChef 11:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I've never heard "den den" in Japan, which is not to say it isn't possible, but it's not common I think - try a search on Google. づ is pronounced the same as ず. See Japanese phonology. --DannyWilde 12:26, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * づ is pronounced the same as ず in Tokyo dialect (standard Japanese), but there are other dialects where づ is pronounced [dzu], and ず is pronounced [zu]. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.164.155.252 (talk &bull; contribs).
 * Japanese person here. Dakuten and Handakuten are called "tenten" (lit. dot dot) and "maru" (lit. circle) sometimes, usually in elementary school. 125.63.24.84 (talk) 12:16, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The Japanese Person there was an IP user, so, I am not Japanese but yes, it is actually ten-ten, writen as 点々 Nanami73&#9875;  (talk). 17:01, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Mnemonic device
I've never encountered the mnemonic device method. I'm a non-native speaker, and s->z; t->d; h->b,p;k->g always just seemed like the most logical progressions. Maybe the article should say something along the lines of "some non-native speakers..." &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.61.47.31 (talk &bull; contribs).
 * Agreed. The progression from unvoiced to voiced is a logical linquistic change. This mnemonic device business seems uncommon or specific to a particular method. Is this a documented tool? I'd like to see something about this from a relavent source before I pull it as it doesn't seem useful within the context of the article, but I'd like to have some sort of check before I go deleting things. LemonSmints 03:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thirded. When I saw it I just thought to myself "now, some people really are dumb, aren't they", but seeing your comments I think it should be pasted somewhere over in b:Japanese or deleted altogether, because the conversions are logical (except h --> b, but you can remember that). Lysis rationale (talk) 17:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I removed the section in question since no one's been around to provide a reason to keep it. Also, Wikipedia is not a how-to or textbook, so there shouldn't be a section featuring obscure memory tips anyway.  On a personal note, I also don't see how going from unvoiced to voiced is so hard to figure out.  Even before I took linguistics courses it just kind of made sense somehow. ～ 藍子  talk contrib  13:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ka + handakuten
If you're going to include "ka + handakuten" in the chart, then please find an actual ka + handakuten, instead of trying to create one out of incorrect characters. Using the wrong characters will only confuse readers. Thanks. Druff 17:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * In what way are the characters incorrect? --Ptcamn 17:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, but I see only a question mark and looking at the source reveals the same thing (ie. it's not a broken Unicode char, but you're actually entering a "?". Try &amp;#12444; instead. Jpatokal 00:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * That has to be a problem on your end, since I see a handakuten.
 * &amp;#12444; is a free-standing handakuten, and in fullwidth fonts it'd have a large space around it. I was using &amp;#12442;, which is a combining character. --Ptcamn 05:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I have full Japanese text encoding on my system, but on my end all I see is a tiny black square that doesn't look like a handakuten at all. However, I just copied and pasted that one character and did a google search for it, and I did get back a bunch of Japanese websites using the it, though on my end it seems to be a generic substitute for both dakuten and handakuten. For example, there was a page advertising some kind of panda bear plushie, but the pa and da in "panda" both had the same generic black square next to them, rather than a proper dakuten and handakuten. If this is just a problem with our encoding, then go ahead and revert the entry back into the article, and sorry for the hassle. Druff 16:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I've never heard of a ŋa character, and I've studied katakana quite extensively. Do you happen to have a source for that? If you want to include it in the article, you should also add some information about it... &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 12:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't have an offline source, but there's a bit on the internet:   --Ptcamn 16:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Mid-word Shifts
When kanji are placed together to form a word, certain sounds make the following character begin with a dakuon. Should there be a section on this here? I know I studied it way back in my first year of Japanese, but it has long since become automatic or consistently mistaken.... Doceirias 22:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Bidakuon
Contrary to the assertion of an editor, the character &#x304B;&#x309a; does exist, even though it's not used in normal Japanese. It has a codepoint assigned in Shift-JIS and can be generated with Unicode composites (as above). Jpatokal 03:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Dakuten/Handakuten Usage
I understand how both the dakuten and handakuten work but I think that it is diffucult for readers to understand (especially non-native speakers like myself) when to use it. Or at least the article should say when to use a dakuten or a handakuten for any character. I just thought that would be a good thing to write on the article..--J.T. (talk) 22:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Uhh... the article does explain it.  What part of it do you find difficult to understand? Jpatokal (talk) 04:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Dakuten/Handakuten Placement
Currently, the article states that these diacritics are placed in the upper right corner of the kana they modify. This is correct, of course, but I feel that we would be remiss not to point out that in some cases, the marks may be placed on the lower right. I guess this is mostly restricted to informal usage -- things like advertisements, etc. I don't think I have ever seen them on the left, but I remember in earlier years misreading プ, for example, because I didn't see the handakuten where I expected it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.7.120.131 (talk) 01:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid you mistook the full stop for handakuten. Oda Mari (talk) 04:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually this can happen with certain kana that have much of its component in the upper-right edge of the glyph; it notably happens quite often with ぐ, as if you actually analyze the character in many fonts, the pre-rendered dakuten is actually shifted downward slightly as to not overlap with the top of the stroke. I have definitely seen it happen with ブ・プ in the past with certain fonts, although it's unusual. Technically, while it's generally recommended for the diacritic to go onto to the absolute top right corner of the glyph, they can be placed anywhere along the right edge, as long as it's clear what it is and doesn't affect the rest of the character. -Wohdin (talk) 04:52, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Multiple variant characters of Dakuten/Handakuten
Currently the article displays the combining character glyphs for the diacritics (which actually do not display correctly on the page, because for some reason they are designed to be placed before the character they modify unlike most other combining characters, but I digress). There are actually three versions of each diacritic set in Unicode - one being the combining character, and two others being a "stand-alone" full-width character ゛　゜ and a halfwidth variant used for halfwidth katakana　ﾞ　ﾟ which actually behaves like a combining character when inserted next to halfwidth katakana. Would it be advisable to add the other two versions of the character for clarity's sake? -Wohdin (talk) 04:52, 24 August 2014 (UTC)