Japanese explained to programmers

There are always several ways to write a word in Japanese. As far as I know, any word can be written in hiragana. Additionally, there are the kanji writing and then katakana. While katakana is primarily used for words that were appropriated from other languages, it has several other common uses. For example, if a robot, alien, child, or non-Japanese is speaking, the words may be written in katakana to indicate the non-fluency of the speaker. Also, many animal names are often written in katakana.

Additionally, there are quite a few pseudo-English words that are written in katakana because they originally arose from English words. Some of my favorites (written in romaji for those who don't read katakana):

- "baabeekaa" : pronounced similar to "baby car", this word means a stroller

- "akogi" : short for acoustic guitar

- "brappi", "jimihen", etc: Brad Pitt, Jimi Hendrix, etc.

- "handoru": pronounced similar to "handle". This is what a steering wheel is called in Japanese, so..

- "handorukeepaa": or handle keeper, refers to a designated driver.

Another interesting thing that occurs in Japanese is referred to as ateji. This is where kanji are used only for the sound they give. In other words, any word can be written by just using a kanji with that sound for each syllable. The meanings of the kanji chosen (there are many with each particular sound) can give additional flavor/wordplay/signifigance to the usage.

Finally, one of the most interesting things I saw in Japanese was a baby soap, called "Arau baby". The first word "arau" is the Japanese infinitive for "to wash" written in romaji, or roman script. Since this is the product name and it is written in roman script, the product label also includes a katakana translation (アラウベビー). So instead of using the kanji for arau, it was treated as a foreign word and then appropriated back into Japanese using katakana. Or something.

The most I've heard in the wild is a short "I'm down.", you wouldn't say "I'm up." (unless you're saying you woke up, or you're high, or your gambling is going well)

Other than that, your versions are more common in the US as well, from my experience.

edit: Thinking more on it... "I'm up for that" would be used if you were slightly hesitant. "I'm down for that" implies a lot more confidence.

Joe flew yesterday to Paris, he had never flown before, so he was nervous.

Pretty much every speaker no matter where from will use the same tenses here, past simple for recent past and perfect for older past. We have similar rules in Spanish and I'm pretty sure that another person from my region would use the same tenses as I would. But I'm not quite sure if someone from, say Costa Rica or El Salvador would pick the same tenses. In fact, I don't know if someone 500km south or west would use the same tenses. This is usually not a problem because usually you don't need that much correctness, but in engineering it can be a problem.

Because English verb tenses are so simple they are used in a way more consistent way and from Australia will use the verbs in a very similar way as a Brit, and even non native speakers can use them in a pretty correct way.

Another problem is that in Spanish verbs give you a lot more context and people rely on them, but again they are used differently across regions. In Englosh because they give so little context means that you're forced to add a lot more context in the rest of the sentence in a much more explicit way.

Yet another problem is that verbs in Spanish are super complex for non natives, and because we rely on the verb so much they may end up saying something that they don't mean. Also this is usually not a problem in casual conversations but in technical conversations it may be an issue.

Finally, English handles certainty well. It's very easy to tell how certain you are, if something is mandatory or not, how likely is something, etc. I can't explain why, maybe it's because I've read countless RFCs and not many specifications in Spanish, but this is a general feeling that I have even though I cannot give you an exact reason but I think it would be easier to translate a specification from Spanish to English than the other way around. Even if I find more often things that translate poorly from Spanish to English than the other way around.

There is just absolutely all sorts of fuckery in Japanese on a count of people playing with the language. It's a fun language to play around with.