Misreading Japanese text due to bad kerning (rn→m, cl→d etc.)


> ## [Kerning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning)
>
> In typography, **kerning** is the process of **adjusting the spacing between
> characters** in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing
> result.

* * *

In English and other languages that use the Latin alphabet, certain characters
placed close to each other can be confused with another character that is
visually similar to the combination of the merged characters. Some notable
examples are rn↔m and cl↔d.

Japanese writing doesn't use spaces between words, so the other type of
ambiguity introduced by bad kerning doesn't apply to it because Japanese
people already live with it.

* * *

Are there any characters among ひらがな, カタカナ(ｶﾀｶﾅ), 漢字 and ローマ字 that, when placed
close to each other, are **often** confused with characters that look similar
to their combination? I'm not looking for a comprehensive list, but I'd like
to know whether this happens in Japanese as well. I'm mostly interested in
computer-displayed and printed text, but examples from handwritten text are
welcome, too.

To clarify, I'm not interested in visually similar characters such as タ
(katakana _ta_ ) and 夕{ゆう}.




As you know, most glyphs in Japanese fonts share the same width, so problems
arising from kerning (or variable character widths, broadly speaking) almost
never happen in Japanese typography. Well, we can think of some unrealistic
examples... hankaku katakana ｲﾑ (i+mu) looks like kanji 仏 (ほとけ), and hankaku
katakana ﾉﾚ (no+re) looks like zenkaku katakana ル (ru), and so on. (cf.
[Halfwidth and fullwidth
forms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_fullwidth_forms)) Basically
these are mere wordplay.

In handwriting, this can sometimes be problematic. Occasionally people wonder
what they are seeing is a single character or two characters. Clumsily written
村 can easily look like 木寸, and there are tons of similar examples. Of course
we can usually understand what's written with the aid of the context, but
vertically-written kanji numbers (一, 二, 三) on envelopes can be extremely
difficult to read.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ridKq.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ridKq.png)  
A fan with the name of 加藤【かとう】一二三【ひふみ】, a retired professional shogi-player




As you know, most glyphs in Japanese fonts share the same width, so problems
arising from kerning (or variable character widths, broadly speaking) almost
never happen in Japanese typography. Well, we can think of some unrealistic
examples... hankaku katakana ｲﾑ (i+mu) looks like kanji 仏 (ほとけ), and hankaku
katakana ﾉﾚ (no+re) looks like zenkaku katakana ル (ru), and so on. (cf.
[Halfwidth and fullwidth
forms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_fullwidth_forms)) Basically
these are mere wordplay.

In handwriting, this can sometimes be problematic. Occasionally people wonder
what they are seeing is a single character or two characters. Clumsily written
村 can easily look like 木寸, and there are tons of similar examples. Of course
we can usually understand what's written with the aid of the context, but
vertically-written kanji numbers (一, 二, 三) on envelopes can be extremely
difficult to read.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ridKq.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ridKq.png)  
A fan with the name of 加藤【かとう】一二三【ひふみ】, a retired professional shogi-player

