How to read "(x+y)^z" in Japanese?

Question

Is this correct?

かっこｘたすｙかっこーとじのｚじ

Kakko x tasu y kakko-toji no z jo

Um, your TL is describing an entirely different equation... how did you get to that...? — Darius Jahandarie, Jun 01 '20 at 03:49
2乗(にじょ**う**) is "square" (`^2`), not exponentiation in general (`^n`). — naruto, Jun 01 '20 at 04:44
@DariusJahandarie Thank you for pointing that. I'm sorry for the mistake. I mistakenly copied the other translation from my document. I edited the question now. — AYA, Jun 01 '20 at 05:16
ひく is "minus". Did you want to say たす "plus"? And note that じ, じょ and じょう are totally different sounds in Japanese. Don't omit the (ょ)う. — naruto, Jun 01 '20 at 05:17

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 01 '20 at 04:59

Please read this first: Standard mathematical operations, expressed in Japanese

As described in the question above, there are several approaches to read this. The most simple approach is to read each symbol one by one. This ^ symbol can be read ハット, キャレット or 累乗【るいじょう】.

かっこエックスたすワイかっことじるいじょうゼット

More naturally, the expression xⁿ can be read as "xのn乗" (エックスのエヌじょう; "x to the power of n-th"). With this, you can read it like this:

かっこエックスたすワイかっことじのゼットじょう

If you omit かっこ/かっことじ and say it like this:

エックスたすワイのゼットじょう

...it may be taken as x + y^z rather than (x + y)^z. This may be okay if everyone is actually seeing the expression on a screen or a blackboard.

You can avoid this ambiguity by using 和【わ】:

エックスとワイのわのゼットじょう
(literally, "x-and-y's sum, to the z-th power")

Note that にじょう is "to the second" or "square" (x²), not n-th power in general (xⁿ).

How to read "(x+y)^z" in Japanese?

1 Answers1