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I've seen this symbol in various places, such as 「日々」, 「色々」, and 「人々」. What is
it, and how does it affect the meaning and pronunciation of the word?
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2011-06-01T10:12:46.593
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2021-01-11T16:29:30.397
2011-12-25T23:39:43.273
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kanji pronunciation
What is 「々」 and how does it affect meaning and pronunciation?
That's the repetition sign, called _kurikaeshi_. It means the kanji that
precedes it is repeated. It changes the meaning and sometimes the
pronunciation. For example, 「人々」in your example means "people" or "everybody"
and is pronounced "hito-bito". 「日々」on the other hand has no change in
pronunciation ( _hibi_ , or less commonly _nichinichi_ ) but it means "daily"
rather than referring to a single day.
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2011-06-01T10:15:44.707
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2017-09-28T11:48:49.560
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It's a character to let the reader know that the kanji preceding it has been
repeated.

In terms of pronunciation, it may or may not affect the pronunciation. For
"色々", there is no change and is simply "いろいろ". For words like "日々", "人々", and
"時々", they are "ひび", "ひとびと", and "ときどき", so the first character's
pronunciation was modified with the dakuten (") marker.

There are cases where the dakuten is not applied though like "佐々木" for "ささき"
even though the さ could become a ざ.
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2011-06-01T10:21:42.710
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It's a repetition kanji or "[ideographic iteration
mark](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wiktionary/en/wiki/%E3%80%85)", it means
that the kanji just before should be repeated. The pronunciation changes
according to the kanji being repeated, but a lot of the time, the second kanji
will be pronounced like the first one, but with a dakuten (hi->bi, to->do,
ha->ba). It often makes a word mean "more than one of that thing". Here's some
examples:

  * 日々(ひび）: days, or every day
  * 人々(ひとびと): people
  * 色々(いろいろ): various
  * 散々(さんざん): severe
  * 昔々(むかしむかし): a long, long time ago
  * 時々(ときどき): occasionally
  * 早々(はやばや): very early

According to
[Wikipedia](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/%E3%80%85#Japanese),
it's called an odoriji (踊り字 ) "dancing mark" in Japanese. I've heard the name
that Robusto mentions ("kurikaeshi") more often.
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2011-06-01T10:36:19.157
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2011-06-01T12:43:31.907
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As others have said, it just means you repeat the kanji. However, there is at
least one case I know of where there can be a difference between using the
kanji iteration mark and not using it. 日々 is ひび (also にちにち, but I think that
reading is rare) meaning "daily" or "everyday life". 日日 is ひにち and means "the
date" or "number of days". The latter is often written 日にち to avoid confusion,
though.
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2011-06-08T00:35:43.287
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It repeats the last kanji and implements a tenten on the first hiragana
character within the pronunciation (if possible) if not, no change, just
repetition. 人々(hito.bito)(hi is the first character for the pronunciation, so
it adds the tenten to turn hi into bi) If the first character already has
tenten, no change, (no exception for b characters into p characters either).
If the first character has haran, I dunno if you'd keep it the same or add
tenten. If the first character can't have tenten (no matter if anymore within
that character can), no change.
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2020-03-23T12:24:27.943
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