Funny little "ditto" squiggle

[klortho]

I've been taking Chinese for a while, and every now and then I run across a teacher who writes a funny little squiggle on the board to indicate that the previous character is duplicated. It looks a little like 幺 but not quite. I've checked half a day but can't find this in the Unicode database or anywhere. Does anybody know if this thingy qualifies as a character, and if there's a Unicode value for it or not?

[Lugubert]

Hope it copies: it's "ideographic iteration mark", Unicode hex 3005, 々. Use it once for the preceding character only, twice for the two preceding ones. Others will tell you when not to use the two marks, it's too late here for me to find what I mean, but I think it's along the lines that the two have to constitute a word, not just be two sequential charcters that you want to repeat.

[adrianlondon]

I was told that it's only used in places (taiwan, hk) that use traditional characters, and it saves writing out duplicated characters (such as xiexie). In my short time in China, I didn't come across it.

[klortho]

Wow, you guys are amazing!

[gato]

'々' is commonly used in the mainland, too.

[adrianlondon]

It is? I didn't see it once. I guess I wasn't looking very hard.

[klortho]

I'm on the mainland and that's where I've seen it. But, as I said, I don't see it very often -- only two of my teachers have ever used it, when writing on the blackboard, and then, only occasionally.

[trien27]

it's also occasionally used in Japan.

[gato]

I don't see it very often -- only two of my teachers have ever used it, when writing on the blackboard, and then, only occasionally.

Maybe they are taught not to use it with foreign students as it might be confusing. Just a guess.

[Lugubert]

A Chinese frind of mine, with a newspaper background from Hangzhou, uses it whenever possible.