Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Decimals and fraction in Japanese

To read decimals in Japanese, read the integer part first. Then say (te)(n) "ten", which is the Japanese word for point, and say plain digit names after that. Omitting zero before a decimal point is not allowed in Japanese.

The euphonic change rule is applied for the word (te)(n), so number 1.3 should be pronounced as (i)(small tu)(te)(n)(sa)(n) "itten san".

There is a detailed rule to make pronunciation rhythmical. You can skip this part. The digit immediately before a decimal point is paired with the decimal point, and the digits after the decimal point are paired every two digits. In those pairs, the digit 2 is pronounced as not (ni) "ni" but (ni)(long) "nî", and the digit 5 is pronounced as not (go) "go" but (go)(long) "gô". These different phonemes guarantee that all digits have two morae, which means the same length of time for each digit, so you have a less chance to misunderstand.

For example, number 22.252 has two pronunciation pairs: '2.' and '25'. So its phoneme becomes (ni)(zi)(small yu)(u)(ni)(long)(te)(n)(ni)(long)(go)(long)(ni) "nizyû nîten nîgô ni". The last digit 2 is not paired, so its phoneme is not affected.

Fractions ((bu)(n)(su)(u) "bunsû" in Japanese) are not so commonly used in East Asia as in the West, but it's good to learn how to read them in Japanese here because it's easy. Read the denominator first, then add the suffix (bu)(n)(no) "bunno", and read the numerator. In short, y (bu)(n)(no) x means x/y. (bu)(n) "bun" means divide, and (no) "no" is the genitive marker. For instance, 2/3 is read (sa)(n)(bu)(n)(no) (ni) "sanbunno ni".

"No, we rarely say よんじゅう に はん for 42.5. Older people used to say はん for 0.5. For example, 10文半(to mon han) for shoes size or 10里半 (juu ri han) for distance. But these days はん in these cases is out of date.

42.505 is read like よんじゅう に てん ご ゼロ ご.
れい(零 0) is a bit hard to recognize. So we more often use ゼロ for 0.
But when the figure begins with 0 like 0.012, we usually use れい for each 0, and say れい てん れい いち. We rarely say ゼロ てん ゼロ いち"

No comments:

Post a Comment