Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#31

Post by fenomas » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 4:52 AM UTC

hermitdev wrote: post #4

Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…

> wildly different pronunciations for some spelled the same

The fundamental point to understand is that those names aren't spelled the same, they're written the same. The writings and readings are essentially distinct things; neither is a representation of the other.

(As an aside, Japanese doesn't really have spelling as we think of it. It has phonetic characters, but their names map 1:1 with their pronunciation, so "spelling" a Japanese word is the same thing as just saying it.)

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#32

Post by Iv » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 4:54 AM UTC

hermitdev wrote: post #4

Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…

It seems odd because it is. I live in Japan, tried to learn Japanese like I did learn English and German: through reading, as the true asocial geek I am. Well, that's not possible unless you know about 1000 kanjis, unless you stick with kids book or some mangas (which, actually, I am not that interested in)

To learn Japanese you need to learn to speak it first.

I stopped caring about kanjis wen I realized that a 15 year old, top of her class, was having difficulties reading news articles because of some words she did not know.

That's polemical and I would not tell it that upfront to my Japanese friends but I feel like kanjis are a vastly inferior writing system compared to the alphabets they have. The reason why it still exists is to create an educational hierarchy: the more kanjis you know, the more educated you are.

Kanjis are of Chinese origin, they occupy a similar place in Japanese culture than Latin does in European cultures. I wish they would do like Koreans and get rid of it altogether, but it will never happen. The culture here is far too conservative for such a brutal change. They even call the furikana (kanji "subtitles" that explicit the pronunciation) as a dumbing down.

This is an example where obfuscation is confused for depth.

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#33

Post by yomly » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

jhanschoo wrote: post #16

hermitdev wrote: post #4

Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…

On Japanese forms that require you to use your name, you provide them with how your name looks in kanji, as well as how they are read (in their syllabic alphabet). When introducing yourself in speaking, you may also mention how your name is written. 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 phonet…

This is a top quality post!

Just came to add that in a vacuum, every language seems insane:

- Most European languages have genders attached to every noun, you have to memorize them. French/Spanish/Italian has 2, Russian and German has 3

- every Chinese word has one of 4 tones (for mandarin, good luck if you want to learn a dialect) you also have to memorize these

- in European languages you have verb conjugation and some languages also have declension which is foreign to other languages.

That said, there seems to be a lot of implicit logic where most native speakers get by with a combination of rote memory and also some heuristics which capture most cases well enough.

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#34

Post by mikekchar » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 5:11 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #32

hermitdev wrote: post #4

Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…

It seems odd because it is. I live in Japan, tried to learn Japanese like I did learn English and German: through reading, as the true asocial geek I am. Well, that's not possible unless you know about 1000 kanjis, unless you stick with kids book or some mangas (which, actually, I am not that interested in) To learn Japanese you need to learn to speak it first. I stopped caring about kanjis wen I realized that a 15 y…

And as a counter example, I like kanji and learned Japanese by reading (though I also like manga, so perhaps it was helpful). I find kanji very helpful in learning vocabulary. In fact, I actually measured how fast I could learn vocabulary containing kanji I didn't know by learning the kanji first, versus learning the vocabulary phonetically. It was about the same. However, as there are only about 2200 kanji in the list of commonly used kanji and there are about 20,000 words you need for adult level proficiency, it means that each kanji is used in, on average 10 words. Actually, it's even better than that because the first 1000 most common kanji are used in 90% of the words you will encounter. I can learn vocabulary with kanji I know dramatically faster than vocabulary with phonetics alone. Ironically, I think it's even more helpful in Japanese than it is in Chinese because there are so many readings for the character that if you learn the word phonetically, you may have no idea what the root of the word is.

Kanji is frustrating to write, but a joy to read, IMHO. Yes, you need to learn 2000 (or so) characters, but, let's face it -- you've got years to do it. I can now read words that I don't know and have a pretty good idea what they mean -- something that would be practically impossible phonetically in Japanese. In fact, when I'm faced with new vocabulary, I often ask people to write it for me (just in the air) -- as soon as I see the kanji I almost always know what the word means.

I've often thought how superior this writing system is from roman phonetic characters (which bizarre historical spelling anachronisms to boot) ;-) I appreciate that you don't agree, but I hope you'll also understand that I have no intention of grading your education level on the number of kanji you know.

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#35

Post by mikekchar » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 5:20 AM UTC

csours wrote: post #26

asutekku wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why japanese people sometimes when introducing themselves also mention the kanjis because of the wildly different readings. There is literally no way knowing the reading if the user doesn’t provide it.

Is this why business cards are so ubiquitous?

I don't know if this is really true, but I've been told it's really so that you don't forget people's names when you first meet them. In Japanese, it is impolite to use the second person pronoun ("you") with people you don't know. So if you forget their name, it can get pretty awkward if you want to talk about them. When you receive business card, you are suppose to inspect it with great attention and it is common to hold it in your hand or put it on the table in front of you while the person is there. Whether that really is an aide to help you remember names, it certainly does help! It's the thing about Japanese culture that I'm the worst at (and to add insult to injury, I've yet to print any business cards after 10 years here -- it's so embarrassing when I meet people :-P ).

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#36

Post by fenomas » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #32

hermitdev wrote: post #4

Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…

It seems odd because it is. I live in Japan, tried to learn Japanese like I did learn English and German: through reading, as the true asocial geek I am. Well, that's not possible unless you know about 1000 kanjis, unless you stick with kids book or some mangas (which, actually, I am not that interested in) To learn Japanese you need to learn to speak it first. I stopped caring about kanjis wen I realized that a 15 y…

> The reason why it still exists is to create an educational hierarchy: the more kanjis you know, the more educated you are.

Things are nowhere near this simple. If there was any value to abandoning kanji it could be done tomorrow, but the reality is that all-kana text is incredibly hard to read, and trying to learn Japanese's myriad homophones would be nigh-impossible without kanji to disambiguate them.

Kanji are complex and archaic, sure, but it's not just conservative values keeping them around. The Japanese language just isn't feasible to learn or to use without them.

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#37

Post by mopreme » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 5:25 AM UTC

Blog author here. Surprised to see one of my old posts on the front page while browsing Hacker News.

It's interesting to reflect on what has improved since I wrote it, and what has not.

Both Android and iOS, for instance, provide mechanisms to get this right, if you know to use them and expose them for those locales (and only those locales). For example, both have a Contact object that contain corresponding phonetic-reading fields for first and last names.

iOS Contact - see phoneticGivenName, phoneticFamilyName https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cncontact

Android contact - see PHONETIC_GIVEN_NAME, PHONETIC_FAMILY_NAME https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Con...

For fun I tried using Google Translate to translate the kanji name in the post 淳子 in various contexts to see what Google thinks it is:

- 淳子 translated to "Dumpling"

- 淳子さん translated to "Atsuko"

- 淳子様 translated to "Sadako"

- 淳子さま translated to "Mrs. Lion"

- 淳子殿 translated to "Mr. Reiko"

- 私の名前は淳子です translated to "My name is Miko"

- 私の名前は淳子です。 translated to "My name is Reiko."

- 私の名前は淳子です！ translated to "My name is gyoza!"

I expected them all to translate to Junko or Atsuko. The variation and unexpected results for what should be exactly the same thing is very interesting.

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#38

Post by echelon » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 5:42 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #34

Iv wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems odd because it is. I live in Japan, tried to learn Japanese like I did learn English and German: through reading, as the true asocial geek I am. Well, that's not possible unless you know about 1000 kanjis, unless you stick with kids book or some mangas (which, actually, I am not that interested in) To learn Japanese you need to learn to speak it first. I stopped caring about kanjis wen I realized that a 15 y…

And as a counter example, I like kanji and learned Japanese by reading (though I also like manga, so perhaps it was helpful). I find kanji very helpful in learning vocabulary. In fact, I actually measured how fast I could learn vocabulary containing kanji I didn't know by learning the kanji first, versus learning the vocabulary phonetically. It was about the same. However, as there are only about 2200 kanji in the li…

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Kanji has aided in my study of the Japanese language in ways I couldn't fathom before trying to do so. I made it to N5-level proficiency [1] after a few semesters of study and only begrudgingly studied Kanji because it was required by the text. I hated it and really only wanted to speak and understand spoken Japanese.

Then I discovered Wanikani [2], a spaced repetition service that focuses on teaching Kanji reading. Unlike Anki decks, Kanji is literally the only thing Wanikani focuses on, but it does so incredibly well. With diligence it's even possible to learn all Joyo Kanji within about a year.

After taking Kanji seriously I began to understand the root meanings of the vocabulary I had known all along. It let me form associations I previously wasn't privy to and enabled a much faster uptake of new vocabulary. Instead of remembering why the syllables さいこう (saikou, pronounced "sigh co") means "best" or "utmost", I can simply recall the kanji: 最高. The character 最 means "most" and the character 高 means "tall". "most tall" = "utmost".

Japanese is extremely logical like this, as is their grammar. For fans of logic it's really top-notch.

If you're learning Japanese, please don't do yourself a disservice by skipping Kanji. A fully-integrated learning approach that includes reading will yield dividends in the long term.

[1] http://jlpt.jp/e/about/levelsummary.html [2] https://www.wanikani.com/

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#39

Post by Grue3 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

trw999 wrote: post #3

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-Corner_Method You can sort Chinese characters (including Kanji but i'm not sure they use the Four Corners Method) by the Four Corners method. Why would you need to sort kanji phonetically in the first place? Do Japanese users actually expect names to be sorted phonetically? English speakers don't expect names to be sorted by IPA so consistency of the sorting scheme should be all t…

>Do Japanese users actually expect names to be sorted phonetically?

Yes. Usually when there's a list of things you'd see subsections like あ (words that start with a vowel), か (words that start with "k" or "g"), さ (words that start with "s" or "z") and so on, and there's a specific order within each subsection.

Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)

#40

Post by w00kie » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #34

Iv wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems odd because it is. I live in Japan, tried to learn Japanese like I did learn English and German: through reading, as the true asocial geek I am. Well, that's not possible unless you know about 1000 kanjis, unless you stick with kids book or some mangas (which, actually, I am not that interested in) To learn Japanese you need to learn to speak it first. I stopped caring about kanjis wen I realized that a 15 y…

And as a counter example, I like kanji and learned Japanese by reading (though I also like manga, so perhaps it was helpful). I find kanji very helpful in learning vocabulary. In fact, I actually measured how fast I could learn vocabulary containing kanji I didn't know by learning the kanji first, versus learning the vocabulary phonetically. It was about the same. However, as there are only about 2200 kanji in the li…

I love that I can see a word I don't know and get good grasp of its meaning (you can somewhat do that in Latin languages if you have a good grasp of latin and greek roots, but not as reliably). However I still cannot read it since I don't know with any certainty how to pronounce it if I've never heard it before.

And in the old analog days, even if you're an expert with keys and stroke counts, it was still much faster to search a roman character word in a dictionary than a Japanese word you don't know the pronunciation of.