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

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

#71

Post by jayd16 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:47 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #54

mikekchar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’ll back you up on this and add one additional point: even in the West where we have our Roman alphabet which largely works fine, and our Arabic numerals which also work fine, I’ve often thought adopting a limited number of kanji, literally less than 10, could add some important precision to our own writing. The rest of this post isn’t really for you specifically, but anyone reading through this comment thread with…

01d/01m/01y could be used just as well, no?

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

#72

Post by baud147258 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:52 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…

Except that you don't need latin to read news article, at most you'd get to know the etymology of some words and read untranslated older text

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

#73

Post by fenomas » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:06 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #59

mikekchar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You know, I started by loving kanjis too. I like the way they combine, the stories they tell. And I can imagine that when becoming proficient with them, they form a nice cozy system. But face it: you say I have years to learn them. I could learn 3 languages with the effort wasted to learn kanjis (which are half a language because then you also need to learn the pronunciation of words). No, I'll perfect my English ins…

I'm not sure it's even possible to get proficient at spoken Japanese without learning kanji, past some intermediate point. You either pick them up without intending to (enough to read anyway, if not write), or you don't get proficient.

The issue being that proficiency in Japanese means navigating endless homophones and kanji compounds, and kanji are what disambiguates that process. Japanese vocabulary has a huge variety of words whose readings are all permutations of a handful of syllables - words like koutai, koutei, taikou, teikou, keitai, koukei, taitei, etc, etc.. And it's not just a matter of keeping them all separate - a proficient speaker might know two or three unrelated meanings for any given reading. Kanji are what makes that possible. I mean, it's challenging to learn even 10 kanji, but once you do it's far easier to learn 100 or 1000 compounds made out of them.

So if you want to say kanji are annoying or not worth your time, that's obviously fair enough - but they're not useless and they're not just there to obfuscate things.

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

#74

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:19 AM UTC

needle0 wrote: post #69

As a Japanese native, it pains me a lot when the westerners come upon linguistic differences like this and start calling them things like "overly odd" or "inferior" as they seem to be doing in the comments here. I can't help but smell a whiff of anglophonic condescension - I had thought political correctness have swept over the west over the last few years, but perhaps they only selectively apply to those who can tal…

[deleted]

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

#75

Post by cryptnotic » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

needle0 wrote: post #69

As a Japanese native, it pains me a lot when the westerners come upon linguistic differences like this and start calling them things like "overly odd" or "inferior" as they seem to be doing in the comments here. I can't help but smell a whiff of anglophonic condescension - I had thought political correctness have swept over the west over the last few years, but perhaps they only selectively apply to those who can tal…

Are you complaining about a lack of political correctness? Political correctness gives deference to people who are just a fashionable minority. If you think that the Japanese are among that group, then I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of your people.

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

#76

Post by kondro » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #61

SllX wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll back you up on this and add one additional point: even in the West where we have our Roman alphabet which largely works fine, and our Arabic numerals which also work fine, I’ve often thought adopting a limited number of kanji, literally less than 10, could add some important precision to our own writing. The rest of this post isn’t really for you specifically, but anyone reading through this comment thread with…

Arguably, emojis are going in that direction. And, seriously, the rest of the world considers it totally illogical to use MM-DD-YYYY. In almost any country, MM are the middle digits. 4月12日2019年 is a format I have never seen used.

Fun fact, emoji was invented by the Japanese. :-)

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

#77

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:34 AM UTC

needle0 wrote: post #69

As a Japanese native, it pains me a lot when the westerners come upon linguistic differences like this and start calling them things like "overly odd" or "inferior" as they seem to be doing in the comments here. I can't help but smell a whiff of anglophonic condescension - I had thought political correctness have swept over the west over the last few years, but perhaps they only selectively apply to those who can tal…

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by tinus_hn » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:14 AM UTC

cryptnotic wrote: post #75

needle0 wrote: post #69

As a Japanese native, it pains me a lot when the westerners come upon linguistic differences like this and start calling them things like "overly odd" or "inferior" as they seem to be doing in the comments here. I can't help but smell a whiff of anglophonic condescension - I had thought political correctness have swept over the west over the last few years, but perhaps they only selectively apply to those who can tal…

Are you complaining about a lack of political correctness? Political correctness gives deference to people who are just a fashionable minority. If you think that the Japanese are among that group, then I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of your people.

What do you mean with ‘fashionable minority’? It sounds pretty condescending.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:51 AM UTC

needle0 wrote: post #69

As a Japanese native, it pains me a lot when the westerners come upon linguistic differences like this and start calling them things like "overly odd" or "inferior" as they seem to be doing in the comments here. I can't help but smell a whiff of anglophonic condescension - I had thought political correctness have swept over the west over the last few years, but perhaps they only selectively apply to those who can tal…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by cmroanirgo » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:58 AM UTC

needle0 wrote: post #69

As a Japanese native, it pains me a lot when the westerners come upon linguistic differences like this and start calling them things like "overly odd" or "inferior" as they seem to be doing in the comments here. I can't help but smell a whiff of anglophonic condescension - I had thought political correctness have swept over the west over the last few years, but perhaps they only selectively apply to those who can tal…

Reading the article showed me how ignorant I was to this problem... so much so that I'm surprised I haven't seen more articles like this in the past.

For all the talk on ML and PC here, it's surprising that language is still a huge unsolved issue. As someoneone who knows a tiny amount of Japanese, I'm surprised that a common solution is to provide the katakana equivalent. Outside of the tech realm, is this really what a native Japanese would write on (say) a physical/ paper document: both the Kanji and Katakana?