I don't understand how Japanese space their words in a sentence. Can someone
explain it? I've looked around online but haven't really read something that
made me understand it completely. Is it case by case or is there a general
rule?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-25T20:04:35.673
59720
2018-06-26T14:57:31.497
30402
question
grammar
Spaces in Japanese
Ordinary Japanese sentences for adults do not have spaces at all. The only
exception is after a western-style question/exclamation mark at the end of a
sentence, where a small space is usually inserted. This is because the
combination of kana and kanji will usually give us enough hint to tell word
boundaries.

When kanji is not available for whatever reason, spaces are often used to help
readers. See: [Spaces in children's
books](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27624/5010). You may see sentences
including spaces in beginner textbooks. In addition, lyrics, haiku and poems
tend not to have punctuation marks, so they use spaces instead.
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2018-06-26T05:37:41.800
59732
2018-06-26T05:37:41.800
5010
59720
answer
**Simple answer:**

Japanese writing does not use spaces, except for special cases (children's
books come to mind). I think the other answer covers this well, so I won't go
into it.

* * *

**Potential Explanation:**

In addition to the other answer I would like to add a little more. The
Japanese understanding of the word 言葉｛ことば｝ is different from the English
understanding of `word`.

The second definition for 言葉 on
[Jisho.org](https://jisho.org/word/%E8%A8%80%E8%91%89) is `word; words;
phrase; term; expression; remark​`. I find this significant because it
represents (in my mind) a different understanding of how words fit together.
The fact that 言葉 can mean both `word` and `phrase` is significant because it
implies that the English speaker's understanding of the two words/definitions
is different from the Japanese speaker's understanding. In essence, a 言葉 is
just part of a sentence.

While I have no scientific proof of this, I would not be surprised if this
difference in understanding is part of the reason why Japanese writing does
not use spaces.

That being said, the Japanese word
[単語｛たんご｝](https://jisho.org/word/%E5%8D%98%E8%AA%9E) is pretty close in
meaning to the English translation `word; vocabulary`.
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2018-06-26T14:57:31.497
59735
2018-06-26T14:57:31.497
22352
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answer