All rules

Japanese helper verbs and formal nouns in kana (公用文)

kana-function-wordwith a style in chaff.yamlJapanese

Kanji where Japanese official style writes kana (〜て下さい); koyobun style only

Example

Flagged
申請書を確認する事が必要です。不明な点は担当者に聞いて下さい。
What chaff prints
1:9 「事」は公用文ではかなで「こと」と書きます 1:28 「下さい」は公用文ではかなで「ください」と書きます
Fixed
申請書を確認することが必要です。不明な点は担当者に聞いてください。
What chaff prints
no finding
chaff.yaml used for this example
style: koyobun

How to fix

Write it in kana (見て下さい → 見てください, 確認する事 → 確認すること). Keep the kanji where the word has its full meaning (giving, putting something down, an event).

Why it matters

A rule of Japanese official writing (公用文). Japanese government style writes helper verbs (〜てください "please", 〜ていただく, 〜ておく "in advance") and formal nouns (〜すること, 〜のように, 〜のため, 〜するときは) in kana, keeping the kanji for the full meaning (資料を下さい "give me the papers", 本を置く "put the book down", 事が起きる "something happens"). The split lets a reader see from the script which use is meant. It comes from 公用文における漢字使用等について, which 公用文作成の考え方 (Council for Cultural Affairs, 2022) follows. It runs only when chaff.yaml sets the style to koyobun.

What it does not flag

Words in their full meaning (資料を下さい, 本を置いて帰る, 事が起きた, 時が経つ) are not reported. 時 is reported only as a condition (〜時は, 〜時には); 時 for a point in time (達した時から) stays in kanji. 〜て行く, 〜て来る, 〜て見る, 所 and 物 are not checked, since the tagger cannot tell them from their full meaning (持って行く, 開いて見る "open and read", 家を建てる所). Without the koyobun style the rule does not run.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: kana-function-word — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax kana-function-word --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: kana-function-word: off
Technical details
Layer
L3
Status
stable
Severity
info
Languages
ja
Suited to
business, technical, legal, docs, academic, blog, speech, literature
Reads from the document
pos

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

strictreported once there are 1
normalreported once there are 1
relaxedreported once there are 3

By genre

Runs with a style (or a level) in chaff.yaml, in
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/address, speech/transcript

Genres

Message

Official Japanese style writes "{matched}" in kana: "{preferred}"

Sources

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/kana-function-word.yaml