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Japanese explained to programmers

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Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#161

Post by Symmetry »

brozaman wrote: post #123
davidmurdoch wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of its exactness. Like with words like course coarse mussel muscle altar alter idle idol very vary presents presence, etc. /s

I know you're being sarcastic, but as a Spanish native speaker I'd say English precisely excels on how well it handles ambiguity and certainty. I also hate with passion that it's not written as it sounds (I think everyone who comes from a language with very regular pronunciation will tell you this) but I don't think this is a real issue on a daily basis. On the other hand Spanish handles other things better. I'd say…

Too bad the Romans only used five vowel sounds and left us with an alphabet that has trouble expressing the however many sounds English has.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#162

Post by thrdbndndn »

cableshaft wrote: post #125
dayvid wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers are really attracted to Japanese. It's the language with the most over-engineered tools for learning.

Well programmers tend to be into video games, and at least for a while all the best video games came out of Japan, so that helped. Between that and anime I really wanted to learn Japanese, and took two semesters of it in college. I even worked for a Japanese game publisher for a while (in their small US office, they originally invited me in to discuss maybe publishing a game I was developing that they spotted at Micr…

I don't think it's necessarily limited to video games.

Japan simply has so many strong otaku (original meaning) subcultures to nerd on, anime/manga/game being the obvious ones (to be more accurate, manga in Japan isn't really a "sub"-culture, but the otaku portion of it is big enough on its own).

The only things I can think of that are comparable in the Western world are Star Wars or Sci-Fi in general, and Superhero comics. But I'm not super familiar with Western cultures.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#163

Post by ickoonite »

makeitdouble wrote: post #138
Laaas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me whether it's one of the _least_ complex languages (there are various warts I'd get rid of if I were in control), but it's certainly not more complex than English. The "many pronunciations for one kanji" thing isn't a problem in practice, because 1) most kanji have _1_ on'yomi (Chinese) and _1_ kun'yomi (native) pronunciation, with it being obvious which one to choose from context, especially beca…

I think parent’s use of ”logical” instead of “complex” better fits the bill. For instance, on the 1 onyomi with 1 kunyomi average, there’s no specific logic making it that way (I actually doubt it’s only one of each in average), and there’s no limit on how many readings a kanji can get, people can randomly add new readings and popularize them. It’s not a problem in practice because not knowing most words’ reading has…

> there’s no limit on how many readings a kanji can get, people can randomly add new readings and popularize them.

Precisely! It is insane. Song lyrics are a case in point. It is the height of erudition to contrive a novel way to write some verb or other.

Furigana are essential for karaoke.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#165

Post by johnwalkr »

franciscop wrote: post #80
hsn915 wrote: post #42

Honestly this feels like "programmer circle jerk" material. I love Japanese. I love it so much that I (accidentally?) moved to Japan. But it really has nothing to do with programming. It's a natural langauge with all the idiosyncrasies of natural languages. In fact I'd say that English in comparison feels like a man-made language purpose built for math and technology.

Exactly my thoughts. While not fluent for professional settings, I live in Japan and speak enough for everyday life and I can tell that the Japanese I studied at school from first principles and more "literature-like" has nothing to do with the one used day to day, and e.g. that one has nothing to do with the one used in manga. You can do the same exercise as the author with almost all languages, the only small advan…

I was thinking something similar while reading the article. Studying Japanese it's easy at first, and even kanji is easier than it appears, but eventually there is a huge increase in difficulty when you get to advanced grammar and conjugation, which changes based on tense, voice, imperative/not, gender, ranking, politeness level, etc. Every language is like this, although every language has its own unique quirks and difficult points.

Learning it is also kind of like learning physics in high school. After a few years you realise the first things you learn are a bootstrap to get started and not actually used in daily speech. Simple example: You hear the words "anata" ("you") and "sayonara" ("goodbye") one time in a month, but you will use them all the time in beginner Japanese class.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#166

Post by thrdbndndn »

louhike wrote: post #29
shiomiru wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if I understand this invisible が idea. Where is it in「私は牛肉を食べます」?

That may seem strange but that would be 「私が」私は牛乳を食べます

I'm amused by the transition from beef to milk.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#167

Post by anthk »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #82
iraldir wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry it's almost a meme at this point that France has a thing for Japan and vice versa. The 90s in particular were ripe with animes on the main French channel, lots of collaboration between France and Japan. We got Japanese movies in the cinema much prior the rest of the world and even today you can find gigantic sections for mangas and anime in bookshops, cinemas...

To add a bit, the first manga in Europe was released in France, in 1969. The first anime was 1972. Also in the 70s, a number of co-produced france-japanese anime were produced for the first time, followed by many others over the decades. I also remember a number of cooperations for Live Action-Movies too. In general, I get the impression that France and Japan seem to have a deep friendship with each other, on the cul…

Sorry my dear Northern French friends, but Spain had a lot of animes since the 70's too. Candy Candy, Mazinger Z... and OFC DB since 1989.

Also, well, on Japan... Spain, 1500's/1600's, research about "Coria del Río" and be amazed.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#169

Post by Anon1096 »

rjh29 wrote: post #104
presentation wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phonetically it’s a pain, but grammatically it is very regular and logical if explained well.

It's like all the complexity went into kanji. Pronounciation of -kana- is mostly regular. Grammar - 2-3 main verb types with a VERY small conjugation table to learn, no plurals, no genders. You can take a mostly complete sentence and whack it on top of a noun to make it describe the noun, or add stuff to the end to qualify its meaning, in a much more simple way than English. I hate grammar and I found that part of th…

You start having problems when you learn about registers and how there's basically a second (or third!) set of words depending on who you're talking to.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#170

Post by anthk »

Izkata wrote: post #119
thegeomaster wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just France, I think the majority of Europe is like that. Here in the Balkans, local dubs of anime (Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, DBZ...) were 90% of what we watched on TV as kids.

Add on Pokemon and Sailor Moon and that also describes the US.

In Spain we finished DBZ in ~1993 or so.

That makes me smile when some Americans say "in the West, in early 90's, no one knew about manganime/Japanese video game"... while in Spain, France and Italy in the 90's we already had a long way along that culture.

By 1998-9, go figure, we were watching Dragon Ball GT. Yes, we saw DBGT before Pokémon. In the West. Something very odd to explain to Americans, often they didn't believe me. Until I show them the printed proofs of Spanish magazines about DB with a clear Copyright date, which is understood from nearly anyone in the world.

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