Doubled particles and other keyboard slips in Japanese drafts

Most typing mistakes in Japanese are not spelling mistakes in the usual sense. The IME accepted every keystroke, every kana on the page is a real kana, and nothing gets a red underline. What you get instead is an extra を left over from an edit, a わ where the particle は should be, or a perfectly good kanji word that happens to be the wrong one because a single n went missing.

This piece starts with how these slips happen, then gives you eleven sentences to check, with answers and explanations. The last part is a short search routine for catching the same slips in a long draft.

How keyboard slips get into Japanese

Doubled particles

A doubled particle such as をを or にに rarely comes from hitting a key twice. More often it is an editing scar. You write 資料を確認します, decide to add a phrase, retype part of the sentence, and the old を survives next to the new one. Or you change が to を and delete the wrong character. Because particles are tiny and predictable, the eye reads straight over the extra one.

In Japanese this is usually described as 助詞の重複 (joshi no chōfuku, "repeated particle"). Of all the doubles, をを is the safest to flag: を is used almost only as a particle, so two in a row is nearly always a slip. Other doubles are less clear-cut, as the exercise shows.

Romaji input traps

Most people type Japanese in romaji, and a handful of conventions catch learners and tired fluent typists alike.

• Particles that do not sound like their kana. The particle は is typed "ha", へ is "he" and を is "wo". Type them as they sound ("wa", "e", "o") and you get わ, え and お.
• ん before a vowel. A single n before most consonants becomes ん, but before a vowel or y it joins the next syllable. "kinen" gives きねん (記念, "commemoration"); for きんえん (禁煙, kin'en, "no smoking") you need "kinnen".
• づ and ぢ. These are typed "du" and "di". "tsuzuku" gives つずく, which is not the standard spelling of 続く (つづく), so the IME may not offer the kanji at all and the wrong kana stays on the page.
• The small っ. A missing double consonant changes the word: "kite" gives きて (来て, "come") where you meant "kitte", きって (切手, "stamp"). Both convert without complaint.
• Unconverted letters. Press Enter before a syllable is complete and a stray Latin letter stays in the text, as in いたしまs.

Width slips

With the IME switched off, the long vowel key gives a hyphen (-) instead of the katakana mark ー. サ-ビス looks almost right in many fonts. Punctuation behaves the same way, leaving a half-width comma or full stop in the middle of Japanese text. The legend of issue types lists these under mixed full-width and half-width characters.

Doubled punctuation

。。 and 、、 come from the same editing scars as doubled particles, often at the point where two sentences were merged into one, or one was split in two.

Spot the slip: eleven sentences

Most of the sentences below contain one slip. One contains two, and one contains none. Try them all before you look at the answers.

1. 資料をを確認してから、改めてご連絡します。
2. 次回の打ち合わせわ、オンラインで行います。
3. 新しいメニューお試してみてください。
4. 店内は全席記念となっております。
5. 工事はしばらくつずく見込みです。
6. 申込書は今週中にに提出してください。
7. 4月から新しいサ-ビスを始めます。
8. 試合のあと、観客が審判をののしる声が聞こえた。
9. この問題は問題は、簡単ではありません。
10. 駅え向かう途中で、もう一度連絡します。
11. ご確認のほど、よろしくお願いいたしまs。。

Answers

1. 資料を確認してから、改めてご連絡します。 (shiryō o kakunin shite kara, aratamete go-renraku shimasu, "I will contact you again after checking the materials.") The doubled を is the classic editing scar. It is easy to see in a sentence on its own and much harder in the middle of a long paragraph.

2. 次回の打ち合わせは、オンラインで行います。 (jikai no uchiawase wa, onrain de okonaimasu, "The next meeting will be held online.") The topic particle is pronounced "wa" but written は, and typing "wa" gives わ. The same slip produces こんにちわ for こんにちは. That spelling is common in casual messages, but it is not the standard one.

3. 新しいメニューを試してみてください。 (atarashii menyū o tameshite mite kudasai, "Please try the new menu.") Typing "o" for the particle gave お. This one is sneaky, because お試し (o-tameshi, "a trial") is a real word, so the eye happily reads メニューお試し as a phrase and only trips at the てみて that follows.

4. 店内は全席禁煙となっております。 (tennai wa zenseki kin'en to natte orimasu, "All seats in the restaurant are non-smoking.") "kinen" was typed for "kinnen", so the IME produced きねん and converted it to 記念. Every character is a real kanji; only the meaning has gone. Slips like this are why conversion deserves its own check, covered in the guide to IME conversion errors.

5. 工事はしばらく続く見込みです。 (kōji wa shibaraku tsuzuku mikomi desu, "The work is expected to continue for a while.") つずく for つづく: "zu" typed instead of "du". Once you know the rule, a ず in a word that should have づ, such as 続く, 近づく or 手作り (tezukuri), stands out quickly.

6. 申込書は今週中に提出してください。 (mōshikomisho wa konshūchū ni teishutsu shite kudasai, "Please submit the application form this week.") Another doubled particle, this time に. A search for にに finds it instantly.

7. 4月から新しいサービスを始めます。 (shigatsu kara atarashii sābisu o hajimemasu, "We will start a new service in April.") The two marks in サ-ビス are half-width hyphens, typed with the IME off. In some fonts they are nearly the same length as ー, so they survive a quick read. A search for a hyphen right after a katakana character finds them.

8. No slip. ののしる (罵る, "to jeer at, abuse verbally") is often written in kana, and the のの is part of the word. A blanket search for doubled hiragana would flag it, which is why a person still has to decide. Other innocent doubles include ここ, いい, もも, ささやく, ととのえる and おととい, and the tongue twister すもももももももものうち (sumomo mo momo mo momo no uchi, "plums and peaches are both kinds of peach") is a good reminder of how far it can go.

9. この問題は、簡単ではありません。 (kono mondai wa, kantan de wa arimasen, "This problem is not simple.") A repeated chunk this time, not a single particle: the result of pasting a phrase twice or undoing only half an edit. The eye often misses these because each half looks complete. The ear does not, which is the argument made in reading aloud as a proofreading method.

10. 駅へ向かう途中で、もう一度連絡します。 (eki e mukau tochū de, mō ichido renraku shimasu, "I will get in touch again on my way to the station.") The direction particle is pronounced "e" but written へ, and typing "e" gave え.

11. ご確認のほど、よろしくお願いいたします。 (go-kakunin no hodo, yoroshiku onegai itashimasu, roughly "Thank you for checking this.") Two slips: a stray s left by pressing Enter too early, and a doubled 。. Closing lines get less attention than any other line in a message, which is exactly why slips collect there.

Items 3, 4 and 9 are the hardest of the set, because every character in them is plausible. If you got those three on the first read, your eye is already working against its own habits.

A quick sweep for keyboard slips

In a long draft, a few searches find most of these faster than reading does. Most text editors accept the patterns below as regular expressions. Run them on a copy, and look at each hit instead of replacing all.

をを                    almost always a slip
にに  がが  でで  へへ     usually a slip; check each one
。。  、、                doubled punctuation
[ぁ-ん][a-z]            a kana followed by a stray Latin letter
[ァ-ヶ]-                a katakana followed by a half-width hyphen
([ぁ-ん])\1             any doubled hiragana (noisy: ここ, いい, もも)

The first few are precise. The last one is noisy on purpose: it finds doubles the others miss, such as a doubled と or は, but most of its hits will be ordinary words. Skim the list and do not trust it blindly. The kana and Latin pattern will also stop at product names written next to kana, which takes a second to dismiss.

Particles typed by sound are harder to search for, because わ, お and え are common in their own right. One search that works surprisingly well is わ、, since the topic particle は is so often followed by a comma. For the rest, a slow read, ideally out loud, beats any pattern. The checker on the front page treats doubled particles and doubled punctuation as basic errors, so pasting a section in is a fast first pass before you read.

Questions readers ask

Why does spellcheck not catch these?

Spellcheck works on words, and Japanese text has no spaces to show where words begin and end. Many of these slips also produce real words (記念, 来て, お試し), so there is nothing wrong at word level. Some word processors do flag a few cases, such as a doubled particle, but no tool can know that you meant 禁煙.

Would kana input avoid the romaji traps?

It removes some of them. With kana input you press the key for は directly, so the "wa" and "wo" problems disappear. It brings its own slips, though, such as neighbouring keys and missing dakuten (the two dots in が or ば), and learning a new layout is a big change for a small gain unless you type Japanese for hours every day.

Are these slips a sign of weak Japanese?

Mostly not. Doubled particles, doubled punctuation and stray letters come from editing and speed, and fluent writers make them constantly. Particles typed by sound are more typical of learners, though こんにちわ turns up from native writers too. Treat them all as mechanical errors: trivial to fix once found, which means the real work is in the finding.