Come across the word Furigana in the context of Japanese kanji and wondering what it means?
Furigana (振り仮名 – literally: “assigned characters”), also known as ruby text or ruby characters, are small kana characters that are written above or to the side of a kanji character in a Japanese word. They are used to indicate the pronunciation of the kanji, and are typically written in hiragana. Furigana are often used in written materials, such as books and newspapers, to help people who are not familiar with a particular kanji to pronounce it correctly.
They are also used in children’s books and other materials to help children learn to read Japanese. Furigana can be written either in hiragana or in katakana, depending on the intended audience and the style of the text.
Here’s an example:
(meaning “to read”, pronounced in English as “yomu”).
Simple!
Additional/extra info:
Furigana have a long history in Japan, and have been used for centuries to help people learn to read and write Japanese. In the past, furigana were written in handwritten or printed materials using small, separate characters that were placed above or to the side of the kanji character. Today, furigana are often generated automatically by software programs or input methods, and can be displayed on electronic devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones.
In addition to helping people to pronounce kanji, furigana are also used for a variety of other purposes. For example, they may be used to indicate the inflection or conjugation of a verb, to provide a pronunciation guide for a foreign loanword, or to disambiguate the meaning of a word that is written with the same kanji as another word but has a different pronunciation or meaning.
