In the
Japanese writing system, these are the
hiragana characters that follow the
kanji for a
verb or
adjective that add the
inflection, such as the "masu" in "
ikimasu" (
go), the "nai" in "
tabenai" (do not
eat) and the "manai" in "
nomanai" (cannot
drink).
Japanese text can often be distinguished from Chinese text by the presence of okurigana and other phonetic characters.