1.
letter, character
A written or printed symbol representing a sound or concept in a language.
この文字は何と読みますか。
How do you read this character?
日本語には三つの文字体系がある。
Japanese has three writing systems.
ひらがな, カタカナ, 漢字
文字を大きく書いてください。
Please write the characters larger.
文字 is the general term for any written character or letter, regardless of writing system.
READINGS:
- もじ: the standard reading
- もんじ: a less common variant reading (same meaning)
JAPANESE WRITING SYSTEMS:
- 漢字: kanji (Chinese characters)
- ひらがな: hiragana
- カタカナ: katakana
- アルファベット: alphabet (Latin letters)
- 数字: numerals
COMMON COMPOUNDS:
- 文字通り: literally
- 文字化け: garbled text (encoding errors)
- 絵文字: emoji, pictograph
- 文字数: character count
- 大文字: uppercase letter
- 小文字: lowercase letter
COMMON COLLOCATIONS:
- 文字を書く: to write characters
- 文字を読む: to read characters
- 文字が小さい: the characters are small