Shoemilk
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2021
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- 17
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Dialogue in Japanese literature is offset by 「dialogue goes here」. They also have grammatical constructs that you generally only find in writing. As I learned Japanese and the constructs, I would try to use them and people would tell me I sound like a book. Off the top of my head, I can't remember if they italicize inner monologue in books as I've not read a Japanese novel in years. (It takes me too long to read it and I get bored).I'm not really good enough with Japanese to read the language. Speaking Japanese and reading Japanese are two different creatures entirely, it is literally the #1 most complex written language in the entire world. (They literally have kanji tests to verify whether or not a person knows how to read and write kanji at various levels. These tests are meant for adults, not school children. There are 12 levels, and the overwhelming majority of the population has trouble passing level 2. (A fair number have trouble passing level 1.))
I have glanced at some stuff in the original Japanese though. I have seen square brackets used in various places in manners that seemed to suggest a similar function to quotation marks, but I did not see them in all cases. It's hard for me to say much on the subject. I would suggest asking someone who knows better than I do.
EDIT: I just asked my Japanese coworker if inner monologue is italicized and she said no, it's just there in the text body, maybe having its own paragraph
The Japanese have proficiency tests for pretty much anything and everything. the Kanji kentei is not just for adults. The first level (level 10) covers all the kanji learned in the first grade. Level 9 is the second grade and so on and so forth. As high school is not required in Japan, anything higher than Level 3 will have a real drop off (already you get iffy at 4 and 5). If you are interested, here is the passing rate for the 2020 test: https://www.kanken.or.jp/kanken/investigation/result/2020_1.html
As you can see, there's a real drop after elementary school levels and not many took Pre 1 or Level 1. Generally, people who can take that are considered a bit out there (You only need to know about 2k characters in order to read books or the newspaper, so the 6k that Level 1 covers is extreme. Think of it like the spellingbee on ESPN, no one knows those words).
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