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Japanese explained to programmers

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Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#381

Post by flippinburgers »

Laaas wrote: post #50
ickoonite wrote: post #24

I have to fundamentally disagree with the premise: Japanese is probably one of the least logical languages on the planet. To wit, it combines the written complexity of Chinese with the spelling inconsistency of English. The one-to-many relationship between a given kanji and its many pronunciations makes it maddeningly difficult, even for native speakers. 生, for example, has at least nine pronunciations. The only way…

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…

Japanese is vastly more difficult than English.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#382

Post by ickoonite »

Maken wrote: post #380
capableweb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: What are your mother tongue(s)? Similarly to people thinking less of the country they were born/raised, I tend to find that people always think their first language(s) are the less logical ones, maybe that fits in here as well. Some sort of bias it seems.

Spanish native speaker here. I must say learning languages is not my strong point, but I am convinced every other language is composed of arcane pronunciation rules consequence of mapping an unnecessary large set of almost indistinguishably phonemes.

I remember a Spanish colleague expressing his exasperation at “cucumber”. I had not noticed its inconsistency until that point.

(The Japanese equivalent that springs to mind is the word for Sunday, 日曜日, pronounced nichiyōbi. It includes the same Chinese character pronounced two completely different ways within the same word.)

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#383

Post by ickoonite »

kibwen wrote: post #379
Tor3 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can read only a limited number of kanji (or rather, words written with kanji), but even that makes reading much easier. Books for small children are written in Hiragana, with spaces, and in theory that should be as easy to read as English.. after all, it's easy to learn Hiragana, anyone can do that in a short time, and with practice you can learn to read it fast. But it's still tricky to read all-Hiragana sentences…

It's interesting to consider that Japanese's relatively low number of discrete phonemes might result in a relatively high number of homophones, but if a preponderance of homophones is the problem, wouldn't listening to spoken Japanese be just as hard as reading hiragana?

Korean has the same problem. I believe they occasionally put the kanji in brackets after a word to disambiguate.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#384

Post by abecedarius »

int_19h wrote: post #265
abecedarius wrote: post #164

Surprised this post didn't mention Forth. https://arcanesentiment.blogspot.com/2011/02/japanese-lisp-f... BTW this toy language came up in my search for the above: https://gist.github.com/typeswitch-dev/ac86d7e32167c1e5bf311...

What makes Forth really distinctive is LIFO, not merely being postfix. You can have stack-based LIFO human languages, too, but it's very hard for humans to parse things that correspond to non-trivial nested constructs in them because of the need to maintain said mental stack. Fith is/was a conlang built on that idea: http://web.archive.org/web/20110610231636/http://www.langmak...

Nice find! It may be interesting to compare Shallow Fith to Japanese grammar -- I don't know Japanese, but I have played with variations on Forth to try for better readability.

While Forth has little point nowadays, RPN still is worth keeping in mind for combining direct manipulation with programmability in UIs.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#385

Post by ickoonite »

fomine3 wrote: post #301
ickoonite wrote: post #24

I have to fundamentally disagree with the premise: Japanese is probably one of the least logical languages on the planet. To wit, it combines the written complexity of Chinese with the spelling inconsistency of English. The one-to-many relationship between a given kanji and its many pronunciations makes it maddeningly difficult, even for native speakers. 生, for example, has at least nine pronunciations. The only way…

I don't think written complexity of Chinese linked to "least logical". Since kanji is composed by parts, isn't it logical? (though it's complex)

If you can explain the logic by which 臭, composed of 自 (self) and 大 (big), can come to mean “smelly”, or 義, composed of 𦍌/羊 (ram, sheep) and 我 (I, we, our), can come to mean “justice” or “meaning”, then you have found the Sinitic Holy Grail that people have spent at least a couple of millennia searching for.

Some characters are moderately logical. A tree, 木, begets a wood, 林, and a forest, 森。日, sun, in triplicate, 晶, is a crystal or glittering. But these are very much the exceptions. By what logic would you create a character for a whale (鯨) as distinct from a salmon (鮭), or for abstract concepts like government (政) or crime (罪)?

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#386

Post by kyorochan »

LZ_Khan wrote: post #245
presentation wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve learned both and found Chinese harder just because if you lose context then it’s hard to understand anything else being spoken. Japanese has more semantic repetition in the sentence structures. Both are equally logical grammatically though, and Chinese does have a much easier time learning character pronunciations.

Chinese has easier character pronunciations? I find it hard to believe that. The tones are what makes Chinese the hardest language to learn. Most people who learn Chinese will never be able to sound Chinese. To Chinese people they will look like some fool who has learning deficits (I know this is not true, but the lack of empathy in mono-cultural nations is quite high). I don't think there's any language in the top 2…

As @presentation already mentioned, Japanese pronunciation has more layers to it than you think.

Additionally, I think a foreigner who actually puts time into practicing Chinese pronunciation can sound very close to native. Most people learning most languages seem to only aim for good enough pronunciation and then focus on acquiring vocabulary instead.

I don't know what languages you speak, but I speak a good amount of Japanese and will occasionally have a hard time being understood in Japan, probably when the person I'm talking to is not used to talking to foreigners. On the other hand, I've had Chinese people compliment me on my Chinese, and I would not even pass HSK 1. From what I've heard from the Chinese people I've talked to you can get away with a lot of tonal mistakes and still be understood, although you will of course sound like a foreigner.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#387

Post by hinkley »

ickoonite wrote: post #349
hinkley wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how ` basically becomes 'yadda yadda yadda' for the entire middle of 傅

In the first round of simplifications, 義 became 义, which is perhaps one of the most egregious ones that has stuck.

It looks like the shrug emoji which given the complexity of the original, I can sympathize.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#388

Post by ezconnect »

bamboozled wrote: post #317
ezconnect wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't hold back their society, what was held back was the competition because Japanese is hard and the locals have all the business and flourished. That's my view on why they were successful compared to other Asian nations who adapted English early on their history.

Not sure if this argument holds water in 2023, "tech" for example is well behind in Japan. I guess the world is a more connected place now. I love the language though so I'm personally happy if it sticks around.

Huh? I don't think they are behind technology. There are lots of technology only Japan can provide.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#389

Post by rjh29 »

iopq wrote: post #351
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…

This is just not true let's take something very basic, the kanji 人 has two on'yomi pronunciations, jin and nin and there's no way to tell which one to use without knowing ALL of the words it will be used in 日本人 - nihonjin, so far so good 三人 - sannin, okay, I guess there's two pronunciations 二人 - futari, huh? 一人 - hitori, wat so please tell me how I am supposed to know 人生 (jinsei) from 人気 (ninki) from 恋人 (koibito) fro…

You basically have to memorise them, like with any other language (e.g. the rules and exceptions of English spelling and pronunciation). Usually it's the most common words that have weird exceptions, because we use them enough to remember them. All the words you mention are beginner words. (There's also 人気=ひとけ, just for fun).

As far as jin and nin goes... (source: 漢語からみえる世界と世間)

jin is more about adjectives/nouns - describing yourself, and part of your identity. 日本人、アメリカ人、原始人、現代人 are all じん. 読書人（どくしょじん） is used to describe people who really love reading. Similarly 暇人（ひまじん）.

nin is more of a plain descriptor. 管理人、運搬人、苦労人、被告人 are all にん, as well as 三人.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#390

Post by rjh29 »

Zababa wrote: post #327
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…

> 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 Anecdotal, but considering how often I see Japanese people have small struggles with their own language compared to British or American people, I think it is more complex than English.

English people very much have trouble with spelling, pronunciation and grammar as well. The spelling and pronunciation rules are at least as complex as kanji. (At least we don't have to write kanji, though...)
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