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My question is how to read these 呼吸 kanji in this line この呼吸も所詮退屈凌ぎ from this
[song](https://youtu.be/fItPD2iW5I0). I looked it up and as far as I found out
it should be read [こきゅう](https://jisho.org/word/%E5%91%BC%E5%90%B8) but in the
song all I hear is just いきい. Why is that so, are my ears just bad or is there
some other reading of these two?
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2023-05-17T12:22:53.430
99662
2023-05-17T12:42:49.767
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question
pronunciation readings song-lyrics listening song
Reading/Pronunciation of 呼吸 in the song 「デスペレート」"desperate"
This is known as 義訓（ぎくん）("meaning-based reading").

As the name implies, a 義訓 is a nonstandard reading of a string of symbols that
nonetheless matches its meaning. Or, viewed the other way around, it's the
phenomenon of assigning nonstandard kanji(/characters) to a word.

呼吸 _would_ normally be read こきゅう, but here it's read いき（息）instead (or you
could say that いき is spelled as 呼吸, rather than 息). Hopefully you can see how
this makes sense. As for the why, I assume it's just for poetic effect. Afaik
義訓 is pretty common in song lyrics.

I'm more familiar with it in manga myself. In manga, it's basically used as a
way to give the reader two pieces of information at once; the furigana tell
you what the character actually says, while the kanji essentially act as
footnote.

Further reading:

  * [Morg Systems](https://morg.systems/Gikun) (brief overview)
  * [Japanese with Anime](https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/gikun.html)
  * [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Special_readings)
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2023-05-17T12:42:49.767
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answer