The 々 Mark: What It Means and How to Type It
You’ll meet 々 early — in 人々 (people) and 時々 (sometimes). It isn’t a kanji and it isn’t decoration. It’s a shorthand that means “repeat the kanji before me.” Simple once you know it — and a little tricky to type.
What 々 Is
々 is the iteration mark (踊り字, odoriji). Instead of writing the same kanji twice, you write it once and add 々. So 人人 is written 人々, and read ひとびと.
Notice the reading often changes through rendaku (voicing): 人々 is ひとびと, 国々 is くにぐに. The mark repeats the kanji, but the second copy follows normal compound-voicing rules.
Reading Examples
Two Jobs It Does
Doubling a kanji is not a single grammatical operation. It does two quite different things depending on the word, and separating them makes the vocabulary much easier to hold.
1. Making something plural or collective
Careful with the word “plural”. Japanese has no grammatical plural, and 人 already covers both one person and people in general. What 人々 adds is many, individually: a crowd of separate people rather than humanity as a concept. A nuance, not a required ending.
2. Making an adverb of degree or repetition
For the JLPT this second group matters far more than the first. 時々, 色々 and 段々 are N5 and N4 vocabulary and turn up constantly. Several are usually written in kana alone (いろいろ, だんだん), so you need to recognise both forms.
When 々 Is NOT Used
This is the part that catches learners out. 々 repeats a kanji only when both copies belong to the same word. If the identical kanji happen to sit next to each other because two separate words were joined, you write the kanji out twice.
民主主義
みんしゅしゅぎ / democracy
Written 民主 + 主義, not 民主々義. The two 主 belong to different halves of the compound, so neither one is repeating the other.
Read the word aloud and ask whether the second kanji repeats the first or starts a new idea. In 人々 it repeats. In 民主主義 it does not.
々 in Names
Surnames use 々 freely: 佐々木 (ささき), 野々村 (ののむら), 奈々 (なな) as a given name. If you work in Japan you will meet 佐々木 in particular, and you will need to type it.
Names are also where the reading is least predictable. 佐々木 is ささき with no voicing, while 人々 voices to ひとびと. Personal names follow their own conventions, so treat each one as a vocabulary item rather than trying to apply a rule.
How Do You Say 々?
It has no reading of its own. You never pronounce 々. You pronounce the repeated kanji. 人々 is ひとびと, two words' worth of sound with no extra syllable for the mark.
When Japanese speakers need to refer to the symbol itself, they most often call it 同の字点 (どうのじてん) or, informally, のま, because the shape resembles ノ followed by マ. Knowing のま is genuinely useful: it is what you type if your IME will not produce the mark any other way.
How to Type It
The easiest way: type the whole word and let the IME insert 々 — type hitobito and choose 人々.
To type the mark on its own, enter onaji (同じ) or kurikaeshi (繰り返し) and convert — 々 appears in the candidate list.
Teacher's Note
々 only repeats a kanji, never kana, and only within a single word — you won't see it bridge across word boundaries. When you read it, just say the kanji twice (with any natural voicing) and you'll be right.
Read real Japanese, marks and all
Nihongo Pass uses authentic text and readings, so symbols like 々 stop being mysteries.