hi,

I was looking up wikipedia's entry on the japanese wikipedia and I ran into a problem I've run into before. A kanji in the second sentence could be read two different ways and both meanings are similar. So I have no way of telling which way it is supposed to be read.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A6%E...3%E3%82%A2

「コピーレフトなライセンスの下、・・・」

下 could be read as した　or　もと

I looked up the phrasing on http://www.alc.co.jp/index.html only to realize I still don't know which reading should be used!

Does anyone have any good techniques for figuring out the correct reading in this kind of situation?

Another one I've run into is this:

「前回のセッション中に　Google Chrome は強制終了されました。・・・」

Where 中 can be read as ちゅう or なか

Thanks for your time!

もと

ちゅう

Cheesemaster64 Wrote:もと

ちゅう

You caught him some fish but you didn't teach him how to catch them.

(Although I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the different pronunciations of the kanji you mentioned, I don't feel my knowledge of them is definitive enough to confidently give you accurate and thorough information. I'll let someone more experienced explain them.)

Doesn't 中 necessarily read as [kana]chuu[/kana] because that is the noun-suffix reading (and it looks like a standard form X中に where X is some noun (phrase)), the [kana]naka[/kana] being the noun reading?
I this is the case, I wonder whether X[kana]no[/kana]中に (the naka form) would also be possible, or is that rather used for physical locations?

The copyleft sentence looks like an adjectival phrase to me so then it would be [kana]moto[/kana].
But I only just started out in Japanese grammar,so don't trust on me, I could well be mistaken, but just sharing my thoughts..

From my very limited experience, you have a pretty good idea of what the kanji will be by the time you get to it in the sentence. Sort of like how I can say "can" in this sentence, and you know I'm not talking about a tin can.

中 is always read as ちゅう when it's used in a noun phrase like that. 授業中, 募集中, セッション中...

As for 下, the meanings aren't the same. した means down, physically under, etc. もと means under as in influence, guidance etc. So you can tell that it's read as もと here.

fakewookie Wrote:中 is always read as ちゅう when it's used in a noun phrase like that. 授業中, 募集中, セッション中...

As for 下, the meanings aren't the same. した means down, physically under, etc. もと means under as in influence, guidance etc. So you can tell that it's read as もと here.

中 can also be read as じゅう, which carries the connotation of 'throughout' a certain interval or area.
年がら年中、世界中、町中、体中 are a few examples.

This post has a pretty good explanation of 中.

wow thanks for all the replies!

中 is pretty simple after knowing the noun/noun-suffix stuff

下 whaddya know, the meanings are different. I saw underneath in the definition of した and assumed it could have the same meaning as figuratively underneath, my bad!

thanks again!

astendra Wrote:

fakewookie Wrote:中 is always read as ちゅう when it's used in a noun phrase like that. 授業中, 募集中, セッション中...

As for 下, the meanings aren't the same. した means down, physically under, etc. もと means under as in influence, guidance etc. So you can tell that it's read as もと here.

中 can also be read as じゅう, which carries the connotation of 'throughout' a certain interval or area.
年がら年中、世界中、町中、体中 are a few examples.

This post has a pretty good explanation of 中.

Interesting, I'd always considered the ちゅう・ぢゅう thing as a quirk of the reading being different sometimes for no reason, but as you point out the meaning is actually different depending on whether it's ちゅう or ぢゅう.

Note that the reading is written as じゅう in hiragana; it might seem like ぢゅう would be more consistent but for whatever reason it's not used for that word.

I would like to ask two additional questions:

1. Does rendaku come in in some cases for ちゅう・ぢゅう ? So that it would be (somewhat) more difficult to infer which meaning is used.
2. Can you use Xの中に in place of X中に?

yudantaiteki Wrote:Note that the reading is written as じゅう in hiragana; it might seem like ぢゅう would be more consistent but for whatever reason it's not used for that word.

I never thought there would be so much I didn't know about 中 ._.