Are there any terms (preferably used in English, but Japanese is also ok)
about whether a word is written in kanji or in kana?
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2016-12-05T09:54:41.550
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2017-02-19T21:29:25.240
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kanji orthography terminology kana-usage
Is there a term for whether kanji or kana is used?
As far as I know, kanji is used to separate words and ideas, since in Japanese
they don't use spaces, it works as a way to separate ideas, also some of the
kanjis have a "name usage" meaning that it has a specific sound for it when
you want to use it to add or mention a persons name/last name.

I don't think there are general rules of where you can't write a kanji in
kana, specially if you are a foreigner learning the language, although it will
look weird to local japanese people.
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2016-12-07T18:23:52.367
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No, I don't think we have any particular term for whether we wright in kanjis
or kana. You can name it.

We just distinguish which characters to write in accordance with contexts.

It's just like English doesn't have exact terms for 消費期限/賞味期限, Which goes like
this

消費期限 2017.02.21

expires:02.21.2017

賞味期限 2017.02.21

Best before:02.21.2017
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2017-02-19T19:18:58.127
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2017-02-19T19:29:42.777
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I think this issue is precisely captured by the concept of _jōyō kanji_.

Dictionary entries will often look something like this (from _Daijirin_ )

>   * す・る 【刷る・▼摺る】
>   * する 【▽為る】
>

where

  * ▼摺 means that the _kanji_ 摺 is not a _jōyō kanji_ , and
  * ▽為 means that the _kanji_ 為 is a _jōyō kanji_ , but not with the reading 為る【する】.

In particular, from this information you can deduce the following:

  * 刷る "to print" is usually written with _kanji_
  * する "to do" is usually written in _kana_

I think you should replace the concepts of "usually _kanji_ " or "usually
_kana_ " by "is a _jōyō kanji_ (or reading)" or "is not a _jōyō kanji_ (or
reading)".
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2017-02-19T19:50:44.370
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