ゞ、ゝ、ヾ、ヽ くりかえし Hiragana and Katakan

[ryuubu]

I understand the usage of 々 for use with Kanji, but ゞ、ゝ、ヾ、ヽ　are said to be used with Hiragan and Katakana respectively. I've never seen this before, what are some examples? And when should they be used?

Thnks ^____^

[mandolin]

I found this paragraph that should help....

Finally, there are special symbols for repeated kanji and kana, of which in modern Japanese only the kanji repeater 々 (called a kurikaeshi, くりかえし (繰り返し), meaning "repeat") is frequently used. The repeaters for hiragana are ゝ and ゞ, and the repeaters for katakana are ヽ and ヾ for unvoiced and voiced respectively, but due to the kana being relatively simple to write in contrast to many-stroke kanji, it is typically bad practice to use repeater symbols instead of repeating the kana.

I guess that pretty much means you will rarely if ever see the "ditto" character for kana. *shrug*

[ryuubu]

I see, so it's for lazy people lol.

[ryuubu]

DOUBLE POST::

What does it mean by voiced/not voiced?

[Kates]

The voiced (or 'muddied') sounds are all of the kana that have daku-ten (") or handaku-ten (or maru) (゜) attached to them.

Unvoiced consonants: k, s, t, and h
Voiced consonants: g, z/j, d/j, b and p

Look at the HA-gyou for example:
When you say HA, HI, HU, HE and HO, (は　ひ　ふ　へ　ほ) your vocal cords are not used too much--it's mostly air and your mouth shape that create the sound.

However, when you say BA, BI, BU, BE and BO (ば　び　ぶ　べ　ぼ), they sound more 'voiced' than their 'original' sounds. The sound BA is created very similarly to the HA sound, so the Japanese just add daku-ten (") to it to change the sound of HA to BA.

I'm no linguistics major, but this is what I have learned and been taught... anyone with better info--or correct info ^^;--feel free to add it.

[ryuubu]

ほう〜〜〜〜。

はい！分かった！