Just a quick question - what is the 々 character actually called in Japanese? For example if I want to type it in my IME keyboard, what do I have to type to get it?

And for those wondering how I got it in this post in the first place, I copied and pasted it from Tae Kim's website, where for the first time I learnt why some sentences had a random katakana looking character in the middle .....

It's called 同上記号 (どうじょうきごう - ditto mark) and you shouldn't ever really have to enter it by itself. When you enter a word that can be written with it, it should be listed in the IME.

ex:
ときどきー＞時々
ひとびとー＞人々

Awesome, thank you for such a comprehensive answer

it is also called ノマ点 (nomaten) because it looks like the concatenation of the kanas no and ma

I didn't know the etymology given by nolusu, it's a good way to remember it. Entering "noma" with the IME does give me 々.

It also has katakana and hiragana versions, although you see it very rarely. いすゞ (Isuzu) is one common case.　　See here for more information.

[Katsuo]

記号の読み方辞典

This dictionary of symbols may be useful occasionally.

Katsuo Wrote:記号の読み方辞典

This dictionary of symbols may be useful occasionally.

*Runs off to bookmark the site*

Thanks for that also, could be quite handy in the future.

tummai Wrote:It also has katakana and hiragana versions, although you see it very rarely. いすゞ (Isuzu) is one common case.　　See here for more information.

How funny, I was just looking at this last night! It's those vertical ditto marks that really get me. They look just like a giant ぐ！

@Katsuo: That link is awesome! Thanks for posting it!

tummai Wrote:It also has katakana and hiragana versions, although you see it very rarely. いすゞ (Isuzu) is one common case.　　See here for more information.

Wow, that's great to know. A while a go people(not here) were talking about the book Kokoro and writing it こゝろ and I was really confused.