Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

In fact, all of these non-phonetic input/encoding systems are highly non-intuitive and have a reputation of sharp learning curves, frustration is expected. This is because, in general, Chinese or Kanji characters are expected to be pronounced or written by the speakers, not to be indexed in a particular encoding system. Only the pronunciation is the natural form in the language.

The encoding schemes are completely foreign, arbitrary to the native speakers. Using them requires extensive and systematic training. In mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in the 80-90s, learning to use a computer often starts from learning the code, and it needs at least two months of mechanical memorization to get started, and years of use to master it, just like how amateur radio operators learn Morse Code (edit: well, you don't need to memorize the code for every single character as if it's Morse Code, but remembering the standard decomposition of characters in the system is comparable to rememebr the Morse Code table). And remember, these are native speakers, much greater effort is needed for foreign speakers.

Sure, schemes based on radicals have been used for a thousand years in dictionaries, but all of these schemes used today are a completely artificial creation for typing and searching things into/from computers (often on those with very limited computing power).

The increase of processing power of personal computers in the late 90s allowed phonetic input systems to map pronunciation to characters heuristically, with high correctness rate. So those codes are rarely used by Chinese, and Japanese speakers (I believe) today.

Unless you've learned computing in the during 80s to mid 90s, or you have a job related to language or word processing that requires typing tens of thousands of characters or creating/searching them in a language-related database, or you are someone who emphasize typing efficiency.

> Because I was interested in typing characters while not actually knowing the kanji.

This is actually a common requirement for people with those jobs, and one of the biggest reason to keep using them. It is especially useful when transcribing texts to computers or searching them in a database.

Users also argue that, using them help preventing the modern disease of forgetting the writing of characters due to computerization, which I do see a point, similar to the spell-checker problem in English education.

It's not a problem in the sense that when you are in a position to ask someone for their name, you are also in a position to ask them for both the orthographic and phonetic versions of their name; it's just not something speakers most other language are familiar with handling.

Also note that most Japanese people you encounter will have names with a couple obvious readings. In the 淳子 example, Junko should be the most likely reading, followed by Atsuko, seeing as "atsu-" is typically associated with a different kanji. Similarly for Kiyoko and Akiko; in usage out of names, "kiyo-" and "aka"/"aki" are primarily written with other kanji. Since all "native-Japanese" readings for the word are typically written with other kanji, and this kanji is rarely seen in normal text with a native reading, what's left is the most common "Chinese" reading for the word, "jun".

There are more "species" of Japanese personal names, less common, including names written completely in their alphabet, or names where kanji is used only for their phonetic reading so that when written together it forms a native-Japanese word (and hence name), or archaic names with archaic or metaphorical readings, or names of foreign East-Asians that are read as an approximation of how they are pronounced in their respective native language.

Put together, most names have an obvious reading and with enough time in Japanese society you should know the obvious exceptions, but the rules for pronunciation are still sufficiently haphazard and irregular that asking for pronunciation is necessary to be sure. c.f. mispronunciation of Saoirse in English for a related phenomenon. In forms,one still does better by asking for both orthographic/phonetic rather than having a huge rulesets and tables to divine pronunciations from orthography (with necessary mispredictions), except perhaps in interactive contexts like in IMEs.

You may think this all is complex, but when it comes to names, there is always a lot of complexity to it based on historical linguistic and orthographic phenomena, but one is blind to them when one grows up in them. Consider that the pronunciation of many English cities are not what you'd expect from just looking at how they are written, or that York comes from Proto-Celtic Eburos + akom -> Latin Eboracum -> Old English Eoforwic -> Norse Jorvik -> Middle English York. Also consider that in many languages, e.g. Latin, words need to be memorized in more than one form, since historical processes make it that the stems for different tenses cannot be regularly constructed.

9 square/Q9 is another popular method.

The stroke-based methods aren't so arbitrary - they are based on the way you write.

Yes - or that's how a human would sort them, at any rate.