#rendaku

真剣; しんけん; serious; earnest 思想; しそう; thought; idea; ideology 異を唱える; いをとなえる; to raise an objection; to voice an opinion different from those of others 加わる; くわわる; to join in (e.g. a group of friends); to participate 目論見; もくろみ; plan; scheme; plot; design; project; intention; aim 打ち砕く; うちくだく；to smash; to crush

(And that’s just from the cover page!!)

世代交代; せだいこうたい; alternation of generations – yojijukugo, rendaku (lack of) 気絶; きぜつ; faint; swoon  (Does that mean knocked out by the tranquilizer?) 防ぐ; ふせぐ；to defend against; to protect against 生存者；せいぞんしゃ；survivor 比喩；ひゆ；simile; metaphor; allegory; parable 駄目元（ダメもと）；だめもと；giving something a try because one has nothing to lose　See also 駄目で元々、だめでもともと 調子こく; ちょうしこく; to be elated; to be excited; to be caught up in the moment; to be carried away; to get cocky  Slang, See also 調子に乗る ちょうしにのる ここのはずだ - note to self, that’s weird, I don’t recall hearing ‘hazu’ with ‘no’ in front of it before.

Rendaku, also known as "sequential voicing" in English, is an aspect of the Japanese language you've almost certainly come across, no matter what your level of Japanese. Have you learned any of these words?

ひとびと (people)

てがみ (letter)

はなび (fireworks)

ひらがな (hiragana)

If so, you've already seen rendaku in action. Rendaku happens when two or more words join together to form one word, and the initial consonant of the second word becomes voiced. (In written form, it gets the little dakuten or handakuten mark.) That's rendaku!

Perhaps you asked your Japanese teacher why 人々 is ひとびと and not ひとひと. Or maybe you asked why はんはん doesn't change to はんばん. To these questions, you probably received a sigh and one of the following answers:

“It's random.”  – Japanese tutor

“You just have to memorize them.” – Japanese professor

“Yet another unsatisfactory response.” – A typical Japanese textbook

But it doesn't have to be this way! There are rules and patterns. And theories, lots of them. Trouble is, none of them do a great job of showing the whole picture. Some have explanations we were able to disprove by ourselves with very little effort. By combing through them all, we were able to put together a guide that actually makes sense.

If you read our guide, you'll be able to predict (or at least understand) why certain words receive the rendaku treatment most of the time. Even if you're just a beginner of Japanese, you'll be able to understand a surprising amount. Plus, it will answer your nagging ひとびと questions.

i’m learning japanese (on my own right now, but taking jap 111 this coming semester) and a pal of mine literally just sent me the wiki page for it; i thought it was hella fuckin rad

Rendaku (連濁, lit. "sequential voicing") is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word.

- Wikipedia

most articles would say it is “hard to explain so just look at examples” which i 100% agree with. if ur not gonna click the wiki link then just look at this screenshot i took from it:

like who the fuck came up with this, it’s so cool. hiragana??? so lit. tokidoki???? sign me the fuck up. FUCKING ORIGAMI HAS ME SO WHIPPED OMFG FUCK ME DEAD.

and look at tofugu’s article about it because goddamn i love tofugu

There’s a nice explanation here that I think explains everything about kanji readings quite clearly.

A sudden edit!

When I started learning Japanese a couple of years ago, I studied kanji’s reading really hard. It wasn’t a easy task since most of the time a Kanji has two or more readings (the Japanese learners here will know this struggle). 

However, there was another factor that made it harder for me. Kanji characters have two main readings called Kun and On (japanese and chinese-like words respectively). However, on the Kun’s reading side, I noticed there was something “weird” going on with the reading of some words. That weird thing is called Rendaku.

Rendaku (連濁) literally means “sequential voicing” and is a phenomenon that sometimes happens when you put two Kun words together. For example, let’s take a look at the word 手紙. This word is read with Kun reading. They are the mix of two words: 手(”te”) and 紙(”kami”). For beginners, one would think the word is “Tekami”.... but NOT! 

The word is actually “Tegami”. But wait? What happened there? Well, Rendaku happened, that’s why. Kanji won’t tell you anything about this, that’s why is important to learn kanji words with furigana. There is not an exact and precise way of predicting this kind of words. But once you get used to reading them, you’ll read words with Rendaku without even knowning. 

I think the possible origin of this phenomenon is because languages, as time goes by, adapt to new ways of saying words faster. If you think about it, it’s easier and faster to say Tegami rather than Tekami. When a strong sound consonant comes first (like T in this example), using another one like K sounds just annoying or “atravesado” like I would say in my native language. 

More examples of Rendaku:

ひと + ひと → ひとびとhito + hito → hitobito ("person" + "person" → "people")

いけ + はな → いけばなike + hana → ikebana ("keep alive" + "flower" → "flower arrangement")

とき + とき → ときどきtoki + toki → tokidoki ("time" + "time" → "sometimes")

はな + ち → はなぢhana + chi → hanaji ("nose" + "blood" → "nosebleed")