Is it Genki Dama or Genki Tama?!

Japanese Language
1

So, I just learned that ball is 玉, tama. But the famous Dragon Ball attack is called Genki Dama (in the US it’s the Spirit Bomb), so I thought previously that it was “vitality ball”. So, why dama?! Why isn’t it called Genki Tama? Am I missing something? BTW, my dictionary doesen’t even have the entry “dama”…

2

That’s because of a thing called rendaku :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s 元気玉, and the 玉 part goes from being read as たま —> だま when it gets put together with 元気

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3

It’s called rendaku ! The japanese word for “marble” works the same. I hope it helps !

2 Likes
4

There’s some rendaku in the level 1 vocab. The 口 in the word 入口 is read ぐち, not くち.

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5

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