Expanding on my previous question,
What if the range is not numerical? I encountered these on a book for learning Japanese.
The 初～中級編 book for beginner to intermediate level and 中～上級編 for intermediate to advanced level.
(Question) If I were to read "~" out loud, what would it be? Can I similarly use から and 乃至?
In English I can use "From One to ten" and "From beginner to advanced", is it reasonable for me to map this to Japanese? i.e. the use of から and まで?
This is an interesting question. In library catalogs and similar contexts, "初～中" tends to be treated as a variant of "初・中" (or vice versa), and assigned the pronunciation "しょちゅう". I assume the same applies for other non-numeric ranges. But I'm not sure if this is the result of a conscious decision by a human being, or just software limitations.
I recall reading that "～" should only be pronounced から when it is either explicitly paired with まで (e.g. "月曜日～水曜日まで") or, less ideally, not paired with anything at all (i.e. just meaning "From X [to an unspecified end point]"). In other cases, including when it is part of a pair that does not have まで after the second item, the rule was that it should not be pronounced at all -- as described in my first paragraph.
This is sort of like the pronounced hyphen in "4-6 mL" ("four to six milliliters") versus the unpronounced hyphen in English phrases like "the Boston-New York route", I guess. On the other hand, I don't remember exactly where I read this tidbit, but it was definitely in a prescriptive style guide so it could be an artificial rule with no basis in actual spoken Japanese.
