June 25, 2022

New Blog Post: Flexbox Furigana

Hi there,

Ever read any Japanese text like this, 日 ( に ) 本 ( ほん ) 語 ( ご ) , and wondered what those little annotations are above the characters (assuming this email renders them correctly…)?

They’re called furigana, and they indicate the Japanese reading, or pronunciation, of Chinese kanji characters (in this case, nihongo, for the Japanese language).

Getting them to display properly on the web using Flexbox CSS, and enabling other annotations to make Japanese pronunciation accessible to non-Japanese speakers, took me enough time and effort that I needed to save everything I learned somewhere.

So, here is that somewhere, in the form of a new blog post.

Flexbox Furigana | Floor and Varnish

Styling kanji readings is a big subject for such small text.

Enjoy your weekend!

Paul