Koichi...I want my money back!

I don’t know, it has no particular meaning :smiley:

Ah yeah true, like kongetsu, I completely forgot that xD

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I don’t think this is a stupid question at all (as suggested). If “reading” means “pronunciation”, then こんにちわ is correct. It is not pronounced こんにちは.

Of course, it is possible that “reading” does not mean “pronunciation”, but something else, e.g. “commonly written as”.

Apparently, reading does not mean pronunciation: See: How is that answer incorrect? Or have I lost my marbles - #37 by MastodonFarm

For the actual explanation of why it’s は and not わ, the は from 今日は is actually a particle (not a part of a word) that indicates a subject as in 「私は」. こんにち means ‘today,’ in fact. In the old days, obviously, people in Japan were saying as a greeting phrase; 「こんにちは よいひ ですね。」“today is a fine day, isn’t it?” (today is the subject in this sentence) which meant “how are you?” as you’d say in English.

Over the years, the 「よいひ ですね」 part from 「こんにちは よいひ ですね。」 has been dropped, and only the 「こんにちは」 part has been left till today, which has become to mean simply, “hello” now.

It’s the same with 「こんばんは」 too.

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And yet

https://community.wanikani.com/t/advice-to-future-pleasants/16412:

How WaniKani Readings Work
When WaniKani is asking for the reading of a Vocabulary word (purple background, plus the question says ‘Vocabulary’), it’s asking for how the word is really pronounced. If you enter a different reading, it’s wrong because that’s not how the word is pronounced.

There you have it: “…how the word is really pronounced.”

That’s not relevant to the current discussion. The paragraph refers to different readings of kanji, E.G. why it isn’t いちにん instead of ひとり for 一人

The sound “WA” is written は when it is the topic particle, and わ otherwise. So it is the correct written representation of “how the word is really pronounced”.

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