In English whenever a slash pops up it usually means either and or or. But I'm not sure if it works the same way in Japanese.

So in a sentence like アニメ・マンガの日本語 How would the ・ be read? Could you say と or would something else be used?

And similarly in the message I get while the PSN is down it says
このサービスはあなたの国/地域ではご利用になれません。 How do you say the slash in this case. It's not really saying and this time, so how do you approach it?

I don't typically verbalize the / in English; if I do I say ‘slash’. ^_^

Yeah I say "slash" as well sometimes. I was just looking for another way to read it when it pops up, even though it's not that common. And in Japanese saying スラッシュ seems really awkward to me lol. I'm not sure if there's another word for it, but Rikaichan tells me that that word is used for the ASCII slash character.

You have to remember that the Japanese are fairly used to saying スラッシュ by now because of things like URL's. So saying スラッシュ is probably fine. In the case of that sentence, though, pretty much nobody is going to read that verbatim. Everyone is pretty much going to ignore 地域 the same way they ignore it in the English version of that message. Most every English speaker would just abbreviate the sentence to "this won't work in your country."

On the subject of "●", I would, depending on context, substitute either や or と.

If someone was reading a web url they would verbalize / as スラッシュ, but I can't comment on other cases

erlog Wrote:You have to remember that the Japanese are fairly used to saying スラッシュ by now because of things like URL's. So saying スラッシュ is probably fine. In the case of that sentence, though, pretty much nobody is going to read that verbatim. Everyone is pretty much going to ignore 地域 the same way they ignore it in the English version of that message. Most every English speaker would just abbreviate the sentence to "this won't work in your country."

On the subject of "●", I would, depending on context, substitute either や or と.

I must be strange, because I usually do say the / lol. I would probably say country "slash" region or country "or" region if I was saying that sentence aloud in English.

Thanks for the help. I have to go look up the difference between や and と again. I've done so several times, but it doesn't tend to stick >.<

You wouldn't say that sentence out loud verbatim. If somebody forced you to say the entire thing in class you might, but outside of that situation you will relay the meaning of that message as "This won't work in your country," without ever mentioning the word territory.

My point is that it seems to me like you're over thinking this, and you're painting a really weird scenario(that you probably won't ever be in) where you'll be required to read out loud, verbatim, a sentence with a slash in it. I've been studying Japanese for 5 years. I've passed 2kyuu JLPT. I lived there for 8 months on study abroad. I can tell you that the situation you're asking this question for probably won't ever happen to you.

That sentence is especially kind of a weird example because no representative of Sony would ever in a million years call a customer あなた. So this error message is already a weird edge case that would be quite a bit different if it were being relayed to you through speech.

You could say both in your anime/manga example, but the specific feeling of や is that it means you are referring to anime and manga as well as maybe other related media. アニメとマンガ means you're referring to both anime and manga, but only those two.

In your PSN example と might not work because it doesn't make sense to say, "your country and territory." You could probably use や there and have it make sense. You could also just do a short pause between the words, and people would probably be able to follow based on context.

Well the main reason I ask is because I at least do read these things in my head. And I do sort of "verbalize" a slash even when reading it internally. I've always done this. So whenever I see a slash in any context in Japanese it halts my reading process because I get hung up on what to do about it.

It's just always been how I read these things. If I'm just relaying a message and the message isn't in front of me at the time yeah I would paraphrase it. But if I'm actually reading something then I have always verbalized slashes. It has popped up on a fairly regular basis for me when reading any article in English, and there are a few times that I've seen it in Japanese as well.

And no I am never really in a situation where I "have" to verbalize a slash, but it's just how I'm used to reading.

I do appreciate the response, and now I know how to handle the situation. Yeah, it's an odd situation for most people. I didn't realize it was that strange to verbalize slashes, but I just do even when reading internally. lol.

In my head, I just pause slightly.

yudantaiteki Wrote:In my head, I just pause slightly.

Not me, I speed up! Beat that!

I just give a little sigh. And to myself, I say, "Sigh".

.

While we're on topic, I'm assuming & is read as と?