On Tue, 2006-05-23 at 15:21 -0400, Joe Smith wrote: > "Jamie Jones" <hentai_yagi@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message > [🔎] 1148358650.13174.12.camel@doomguy">news:[🔎] 1148358650.13174.12.camel@doomguy... > > >> Only if an adequate > >> English version was available [1], pruning the Japanese docs would be > >> an option IMO (and only because ~99.9% of Japanese people have good > >> command of English). > > > >You must have a very different experience of Japanese people then I do. > >If we talk percentages using my immediate family as an example, only 33% > >of them speak any English, and of that, only 16% would speak what is > >considered good English. Far less then the ~99.9% you quote. > > > >In short dropping the Japanese docs should not be an option even if an > >English version is available. > > Well, remember that there are four distinct parts to language comprehension. > Reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Perhaps you feel I don't understand this, but as I deal with this on a daily basis, I assure you I understand this very well, more so then most monolingual people would. > > Reading is easier than writing, and listening is easier than speaking. Debatable. It very much depends on the person and how they learn a language. I'd argue that listening, and speaking are easier, then reading and writing. Don't believe me ? Watch children learn their first (or second) language, they always speak second, after listening first. Very different to "formal" language classes. > I suspect that some of your family can understand English far better than > they can produce it. Yes, that's the 17% that don't speak good English. While it is common for most Japanese to attend an English class, that by no means enables them to understand it, after all, it is not the language they use to carry out their daily duties. > > Japanese's relationship with English is complicated. There is regular > English, transliterated English, > and several transliterated English words have been adopted by the Japanese > language. I really see no difference between how Japanese and English languages evolve. They both adopt useful words from other languages, sometimes changing the meaning in the process. > > I have heard of some Japanese product manuals written entirely in > transliterated English! (Using kana. This is a bit annoying to > US importers of the product, who would prefer real English, or at the very > least, transliterated English written in romaji. [Normal English speakers > could probably guess the original English word often enough to understand > the sentences.]) > Well, the importer could a gotten a sample product first to determine if they would need to translate the manual themselves. Then we could debate which dialect of English should be used, that used in the Commonwealth and former colonies, or that used by the USA and former colonies. This has been a fascinating learning experience for me. I've discovered that it seems that people believe that it is ok to insist on changing the language of a document into English, because they don't understand the language it is in. It also shows there is a widespread belief that most if not all Japanese understand English, so it is ok to remove Japanese documentation. In the words of an exasperated Japanese person I know while stuck trying to express themselves in English "What makes English so fucking great ? I have my language too!" What I'd like these people to do for a moment is assume you speak a language other then English as your only language, say an East-Asian one, Chinese, Japanese or Korean. Now, you are packaging some software, but the license is in English. Do you insist the author re-write the license in your language and remove the English version? Why/Why Not ? -- Jamie Jones Proprietor E-Yagi Consulting ABN: 32 138 593 410 Mob: +61 4 16 025 081 Email: eyagi.consulting@gmail.com Web: http://www.eyagiconsulting.com GPG/PGP signed mail preferred. No HTML mail. No MS Word attachments PGP Key ID 0x4B6E7209 Fingerprint E1FD 9D7E 6BB4 1BD4 AEB9 3091 0027 CEFA 4B6E 7209
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