I made a thread a while back about シ　and ツ, and now I'm making a thread about this.

I've actually gotten better with the shi/tsu thing, but not this.
See, when I'm typing and reading stuff on the computer, I just can't seem to tell the difference between the two dashes and the circle.

On top of that, for some characters, it's difficult to see the two dashes whatsoever.

Is there some kind of way to work on this, or just raw practice?

Enlarge your browser's font size.

Ctrl-+
Ctrl--
Ctrl-0

Yep, just use a larger font size (or a different font, maybe) if you're having trouble. Eventually as you learn the words it's not so important, because you know that びっくり is double-dash and ぴったり is circle because that's how the words are spelt, so you don't need to peer carefully at them at all.

One important, almost indispensable, tool I've not seen mentioned anywhere, online or off, is a magnifying glass ... books don't have font zoom, and these old eyes of mine need all the help they can get.

That aside, both Linux and Windows have magnify accessories you could stash out of the way to the side of your desktop as a small window if you don't want to zoom the whole page, or if you're using an app that doesn't zoom.

pm215 Wrote:Yep, just use a larger font size (or a different font, maybe) if you're having trouble. Eventually as you learn the words it's not so important, because you know that びっくり is double-dash and ぴったり is circle because that's how the words are spelt, so you don't need to peer carefully at them at all.

I've also found that usually if you can't tell, its a び. The two lines tend to look pretty indistinct. Whereas the circle of ぴ is usually clearer and not as easy to mistake for び. Very dependent on font and OS of course.

The thing about it is, the dot, even when I know it's a dot, almost looks like the two lines, because of the way it's drawn...

If you look at it as 4 pixels, it's a circle.

But if you look at it as 2 pixels next to two pixels, it looks like two lines...

I think this is one of those things where you learn to read it correctly based on the word your reading. There are probably only so many words that use ビ or ピ. Eventually you will just learn the words and read by the shape of the word rather then each individual character.

However, my mom reads Chinese with her browser scaled at 200% so this of course is always a solution too.

zachandhobbes Wrote:The thing about it is, the dot, even when I know it's a dot, almost looks like the two lines, because of the way it's drawn...

If you look at it as 4 pixels, it's a circle.

But if you look at it as 2 pixels next to two pixels, it looks like two lines...

If you enlarge your font, the mark will be more than 4 black pixels.

hornlo Wrote:That aside, both Linux and Windows have magnify accessories you could stash out of the way to the side of your desktop as a small window if you don't want to zoom the whole page, or if you're using an app that doesn't zoom.

I don't know in other versions, but in Win 7 you can open the magnifying tool by pressing Win + "+".