千本桜 this means something to the extent of 'A Thousand Cherry Trees', right? - Feed Post by lynseybaxter
千本桜 this means something to the extent of 'A Thousand Cherry Trees', right?
I'm a little confused as to the reading and pronunciation, because I've seen it romanized as 千=sen 本=bon 桜=zakura.
I know 本 is normally read as 'hon' like in book and 桜 was read as 'sakura', but when they all come together it is romanized and pronounced differently than any readings I have learned.
Is there a particular rule that I am missing when trying to read these kanji or are they a special exception?
I'm a little confused as to the reading and pronunciation, because I've seen it romanized as 千=sen 本=bon 桜=zakura.
I know 本 is normally read as 'hon' like in book and 桜 was read as 'sakura', but when they all come together it is romanized and pronounced differently than any readings I have learned.
Is there a particular rule that I am missing when trying to read these kanji or are they a special exception?
posted by lynseybaxter
Comments 5
yes there kinda is.
like how 百 (100) is read as hyaku alone but if paired with 六, it becomes 六百, which is romanized as roppyaku.- because well, it would sound weird if it was read as senhonsakura. or rokuhyaku, right? so, there you go with the differences. just like the words irony and ironic. same root word, different pronunciations
- well, **** wrong example hahaha i apologize
What you've noticed is called sequential voicing. Like TheDand963 says, it is probably a result of ease of pronunciation. Like with English, you have to learn the proper pronunciation of words word by word.
That being said, in the case of counting, there are set patterns that recur for all types of items that you count, so it should be easy to pick up on.
For other words, it roughly follows some predictable patterns.
Sequential voicing is for instance pretty much only relevant for kun-yomi words.
Among kun-yomi words, you can generally expect sequential voicing to occur either for words that repeat a character for pluralization:
人々 ひとびと、 神々 かみがみ etc.
or for compound words:
手 + 袋 = てぶくろ, not てふくろ
Sometimes, however, when a word is made up of two stand-alone words, it may not occur.
Example: 日本(にほん)、 朝日 (あさひ)、山川(やまかわ)
Some characters are especially tricky. the suffix 中 for instance is irregular:
顔中 (all over one's face) is かおじゅう. 夢中 (entranced) is むちゅう.
So it's all about understanding the patterns and then having enough experience to recognize which words have sequential voicing.
Ahh~
分かります、ありがとうございます！
I hope that I will notice these patterns in the future! Thank you both for clarifying this point for me!
