Remembering 一文字 vs 文字

They contain the same Kanji with roughly the same meaning. But one is written
いちもんじ, the other もじ. And I get them wrong all the time simply by “failing the coinflip”…

Do you have any decent mnemonic to remember which one is もんじ and which is もじ?

一文字 has an extra kanji attached so it has an extra consonant as well も
文字 is short, so the reading is short as well。 も

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The trickier thing probably is that 文字 is also a counter for characters, so one character is 一文字 (ひともじ), so you have to recognize the context.

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Right after I posted I thought about that as well. It’s longer anyways, might as well add another kana. Let’s see if it helps. Thanks

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Yeah, sometimes you can make really memorable mnemonics, but really mundane ones like this sometimes stick too. I use mundane ones a lot more than long-winded ones.

Just saw Leebo’s comment. You can think いちもじ is a straight line so it has the n.
ひともじ is just one もじ just the one も。

I remember suffering through this. I think i sorta got lucky in guessing and managed to guru it :rofl:

One (potentially costly) method could be to play Octopath Traveller. Olberic has an attack called 横一文字切り, and the characters like to call out their attacks… quite a lot…

YOKOICHIMONJIGIRI!!!

After a few days or weeks of this I can almost guarantee you’ll be quite unable to forget the reading… ever…

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Until Leebos post I went with the moji one being the root to the word “emoji”. When you add a number to it it goes back to the regular reading since it’s no longer an emoji. Not sure what I’m gonna do if they start adding numbers in front of both though.

Now you’ve confused the person even more by giving another reading lol

I don’t have any magic advice for you, but you’ll probably remember the readings now simply because you took the time to create this thread. Now you have an extra connection in your brain to help with recall. Come to think of it, so do I. So thanks!

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