Gatchamania.net - Print: Qwerty???

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Posted by Tengu on 09-10-2011 at 21:32:

Qwerty???

Always puzzles me when I see a Roman keyboard in Anime.

Theres one in both `Applessed` Movies.

And in `Ergo Proxy`...

And in `Noein`...

To be fair, `Appleseed` and `Ergo Proxy` are set in English speaking settings.

And the two characters in Noein we see using them, are Quantum Physists..we can assume they do speak and write english... (And one is definatley using an english language programme.)

What do you think?

Or do all anime characters by default speak Bonin island? (A place in the world where they `do` speak a mix of english and japanese.)

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Posted by Reboekah on 09-10-2011 at 22:30:

Actually - there is a predominance of QWERTY keyboards in China and Japan and most other countries - they just remap the keyboard to conform with the characters in the language. You can do that directly on any computer-supported keyboard.

Probably has something to do with the predominant position of the US and Europe (English-speaking areas) in the development of the original typewriters. Now the training is inbred in the scholastic system and probably will take a major interface intervention to change it.

Still - you have to admit that being able to express thoughts in combinations and permutations of 26 symbols is rather efficient!

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Posted by lborgia88 on 09-10-2011 at 22:42:

I imagine it is hard to change away from something once everyone's used to it. I type without looking at the keyboard so I'd find it pretty hard to use a one that wasn't QWERTY. As it is, I've never encountered one that wasn't (though the BF's has the right-side shift key where the slash key ought to be -very irritating to use!) but I recall my Dad once traveling in France and grumbling in his emails about how tedious it was to type them on the non-QWERTY keyboards he was encountering there.

Posted by Transmute Jun on 10-10-2011 at 02:06:

We were in Europe a couple of months ago and I access the internet in Germany. The keyboard looked the same, but a few of the keys were placed in difference parts of the keyboard... maybe about 5 overall. And the 'other' characters, such as the @ symbol, were in totally different places as well. Made for some interesting typing!

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Posted by green on 10-10-2011 at 06:03:

In Japan qwerty keyboards are far more common than any other type. The reason being is romaji is taught to all elementary school students (that's how to take a Japanese word and romanise it). Instead of a keyboard with all the hiragana and katakana 'alphabets' on the keys, it is just as easy to type it in romaji...

If you want an example of romanji.... romanji is as good as any! LOL (It means roman characters)

Admittedly, it does get more complicated than that, because all the word processing programmes then start suggesting kanji characters based on the letters you're typing.

I stunned my co-workers because I could touch type (and naturally ended up doing all the English word processing necessary). They, on the other hand, had to stop and choose the right character to fit what word they were writing.

Their admiration, however, soon turned from 'wow - that's awesome!' to muttered 'that damn woman, comes in here and five minutes later walks out with a whole page while I'm still on the second paragraph!'

There have been experimental completely Japanese keyboards and you often have the choice of typing out the two letter syllable or choosing a function that designates a key for each one (the character is in a different colour above the key itself), but the people I had conversations on this topic with all said they prefer the qwerty (the reasons why would require a lesson in Japanese so I won't bore you with it! LOL).

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Posted by Transmute Jun on 10-10-2011 at 14:28:

That's really interesting, Green. It just goes to show my own ignorance, because I wasn't even aware that the Japanese could 'spell' in Japanese characters... other than perhaps names and such. I thought each symbol was its own word. Or am I mixing it up with Chinese?

As I said, I'm ignorant, so I appreciate the information.

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Posted by Tengu on 10-10-2011 at 17:42:

Thats chinese.

The Japanese have several scripts.

KANJI -chinese characters

HIRAGANA a sillabary

KATAKANA another sillabary, dont know the difference.

(can anyone explain?)

Thanks for your informastion. I can be terribly ignorant on Things Japanese. (Its not like I will ever go there. And its strange how my adventuring friends treat Asia with indifference. If I was the traveling type, I would definaly go to Asia.)

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Posted by green on 10-10-2011 at 18:40:

Hiragana is the script used to write Japanese words 'out in full' so to speak as well as fill the gaps in the sentence not covered by kanji.

Katakana is for borrowed words or used stylistically to add emphasis (you see this in manga and company names a lot).

It is not uncommon to see a sentence using all three scripts...!

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Posted by Reboekah on 10-10-2011 at 22:26:

Kanji (the symbology) - if I recall correctly - originated in Chinese symbols. Thus, the symbol can have the following:

1) The meaning of the original kanji but the Japanese pronounciation
2) The pronounciation of the original kanji but the Japanese meaning
3) the meaning and pronounciation of the original kanji

Hiragana is - as Green mentioned - appended to the kanji to provide verb tense, additional syllables after the kanji sound, or a "fully expanded" pronounciation guide.

Katakana is also for sounds (Onomatopoeias) as well as words borrowed from other languages.

__________________
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Posted by lborgia88 on 12-10-2011 at 02:14:

Wow, written Japanese sounds complex, though I suppose if one's grown up with it, it seems straight forward. Can't be so easy to learn as a second language, as an adult, I would imagine!