Tokyo Governor Sued for Insulting French

deadhippo · 29 Aug 2005

mikecash said:
The thing that throws them off, dear deadhippo, is the existence of the 窶毒 unit.

Try writing a 12 digit number with the commas every 4 places instead of every three and then see how easy it is to read it in Japanese.

123,456,789,012
versus
1234,5678,9012

1234窶ｰﾂｭﾂ窶售窶啅窶啖窶啗窶毒督窶唸窶唹窶啀窶啣

See?

i can see what makes it difficult for them
which was my poit originally
that its easier to read large numbers in english than it is in japanese

Maciamo · 29 Aug 2005

deadhippo said:
i can see what makes it difficult for them
which was my poit originally
that its easier to read large numbers in english than it is in japanese

It's only difficult if you place commas like in English, but it's also difficult in English to read a figure with commas every 4 numbers. In Japanese the 窶ｰﾂｭ and 窶毒 are often written in the figure itself.

deadhippo · 29 Aug 2005

Maciamo said:
It's only difficult if you place commas like in English, but it's also difficult in English to read a figure with commas every 4 numbers. In Japanese the 窶ｰﾂｭ and 窶毒 are often written in the figure itself.

i realise that they sometimes put those characters inside the figure itself but when you think about it, for large numbers, we usually dont bother with the smaller numbers
instead of 1,564,533 we will say 1.5 million
but thats something elase
the point is that its easier to read large numbers in english than it is in japanese

i agree that it would be more difficult to read if you put the comma every 4 numbers but who does that
japanese people place commas in the same position as we do

i think you must be kidding if you are trying to imply that its easier to read

746028475985
than
746,028,475,985

even for japanese people

Mike Cash · 29 Aug 2005

The real question is.....Why do they write the commas every three instead of every four?

And I don't think we can accept a "mumble mumble world standard mumble mumble everybody does it that way mumble mumble" sort of explanation for it. At least not for domestic use, anyway. Or if we do, how do we explain away this year being both 窶｢ﾂｽﾂ青ｬ17窶扼 and 2005? Japan has shown that it is not averse to running two different systems at once.

deadhippo · 29 Aug 2005

i think as, Maciamo mentioned, they running two different systems at once regarding numbers as well
so mikecash, i think you may have answered your own question

Maciamo · 29 Aug 2005

deadhippo said:
i think you must be kidding if you are trying to imply that its easier to read

746028475985
than
746,028,475,985

I never said that. I said it was easier for the Japanese and more difficult for Westerners if it was written like this :

7460,2847,5985

mikecash said:
And I don't think we can accept a "mumble mumble world standard mumble mumble everybody does it that way mumble mumble" sort of explanation for it.

What is more, Japanese is far from the only language to have a numeric system in 10000 instead of 1000. Chinese, most (if not all) Indian languages and probably most East Asian languages have the same system.

deadhippo · 29 Aug 2005

i was referring to this part of your sentence

Maciamo said:
It's only difficult if you place commas like in English

when i said the following

Originally Posted by deadhippo
i think you must be kidding if you are trying to imply that its easier to read

746028475985
than
746,028,475,985

im not sure why you want to add commas after every 4 numbers idea to the topic either

gaijinalways · 19 Jan 2006

french insulted

Korean also uses sets of 4 when counting.

Japanese has maybe a dozen counters, and although some are irregular, the difficulty to remember them is no match for the thousands of counters existing in English, some of which are unknown of many native speakers (it could make a good theme for a TV quiz => what animals do we count in clowders ? ....................... cats ! In what do we count lions ? ........................................ in pride ! Yes, a pride of lions, but a clowder of cats. What is this language !? Not had enough ? What counter is exclusively used for grouses and partridges ? ......................... "covey" !).

Yes, but we don't use these to count normally, I just would say 4 lions for example. In addition, Japanese has different counting systems depending on what the object is, English is much simplier in that regards, discounting words like a score, a dozen, etc which you don't have to use.

Tokyo Governor Sued for Insulting French

deadhippo

先輩

Maciamo

先輩

deadhippo

先輩

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

deadhippo

先輩

Maciamo

先輩

deadhippo

先輩

gaijinalways

puzzled gaijin

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