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+--- Thread: Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 (/thread-6906.html)
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Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - gdaxeman - 2010-12-21
Blahah Wrote:It's not "not English" to add serifs - there's plenty of stylistic variation in the English speaking world, and plenty of people write their 7s with a serif.That's the whole point: the Japanese also should accept that 7s are written in different ways and not assert that it's "wrong" when it's not the way they write it, especially in an English class.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - JimmySeal - 2010-12-21
I'm of two minds about this one. It's important to expose students to foreign ways of doing things, and of all places, an English class is the place to do it, but are you really going to let the way you write your 7s be the place where you pick your fight, when there are so many other things about English classes here that are excessively Japanese? Seems kind of petty.
And to some extent, it is Japan, and it makes sense to let the teacher decide how much they want to stick to Japanese concepts most of the time, especially if a miswritten 7 could cost the students a job application down the road.
I laugh to imagine how quickly my JTE's head would have exploded if I ever tried marking papers with circles for wrong answers and checkmarks for right answers.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - Blahah - 2010-12-21
gdaxeman Wrote:I don't think that was the point - zigmonty was asserting that the Japanese should teach a different style of 7 to people learning English, because all English people don't use a serif. My point was that plenty of English people do use a serif, and various other forms of 7.Blahah Wrote:It's not "not English" to add serifs - there's plenty of stylistic variation in the English speaking world, and plenty of people write their 7s with a serif.That's the whole point: the Japanese also should accept that 7s are written in different ways and not assert that it's "wrong" when it's not the way they write it, especially in an English class.
In England most schools will teach you to write a non-serif 7, just like in Japan they'll teach you to write with a serif. That's not a failure of either system, nobody in the world is going to be confused for long when they see different ways of writing 7s. Nobody ever taught me to recognise all the various styles, it's just obvious, so you don't need to teach students more than one way of writing it.
If Japanese schools insist on teachers using the serif, I bet they also insist on them using correct stroke order in their kanij - that's a reasonable thing to expect of teachers, that they use the standardised form of the language. It doesn't stop people from developing away from that later in life, and it doesn't stop students recognising the variations.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - zigmonty - 2010-12-21
Blahah Wrote:That wasn't what i said at all (did you read my post?). gdaxeman seems to be the first person to get what i was trying to say (do i really suck that hard at getting my point across?). The japanese should teach the numeral 7 how ever the hell they want.gdaxeman Wrote:I don't think that was the point - zigmonty was asserting that the Japanese should teach a different style of 7 to people learning English, because all English people don't use a serif. My point was that plenty of English people do use a serif, and various other forms of 7.Blahah Wrote:It's not "not English" to add serifs - there's plenty of stylistic variation in the English speaking world, and plenty of people write their 7s with a serif.That's the whole point: the Japanese also should accept that 7s are written in different ways and not assert that it's "wrong" when it's not the way they write it, especially in an English class.
I thought, however, the whole point of getting native speakers in as english teachers was so the students could learn from a native. If you then "correct" that native into being more japanese in his style, what was the point? If they hire a native that writes with serifs or lines through the middle, i have zero problems with that. In this case, they hired a native that didn't normally write with serifs and told him to do so. As soon as you do that, you're taking away some of his nativeness.
If the reason is to be more understandable, why not tell him to speak with a katakana accent as well? It's a more extreme case, sure, but it's the same logic. Bend english to fit what's easy for the students rather than teaching english as english natives use it. If the students can't get their head around as simple a notion as that english speakers often write the number 7 differently to the japanese way they were taught... well that's just stunningly inflexible.
Honestly, i really don't care that much. How you write a 7 is so trivial a matter. I work for a japanese company, and i'm somewhat sick of rules for the sake of rules that no one questions, that seem to utterly miss the point of what the goal is. I was just venting in another topic.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - JimmySeal - 2010-12-21
zigmonty Wrote:I thought, however, the whole point of getting native speakers in as english teachers was so the students could learn from a native. If you then "correct" that native into being more japanese in his style, what was the point?I think the point is that he speaks English natively.
Quote:In this case, they hired a native that didn't normally write with serifs and told him to do so. As soon as you do that, you're taking away some of his nativeness.I think they'll survive without that portion of his nativeness.
Quote:If the reason is to be more understandable, why not tell him to speak with a katakana accent as well?Because then they wouldn't be learning English.
Quote:It's a more extreme case, sure, but it's the same logic.Carrying things to logical extremes rarely accomplishes anything productive, even if it is the same logic.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - TheCuriosity - 2010-12-21
Asriel Wrote:For what it's worth:How the '5' is written in that is exactly how I was taught in school - and got into trouble repeatedly for not writing/printing it in the "correct order/direction" - as with many other letters/numbers. It was a lot easier for me writing them that way being left-handed, but the teacher I had was pretty stubborn and kept insisting strongly that I had to write them the way we were being taught. (e.g. I always have done my 5s like S's, my 0's counter-clockwise and my capital E's in 1 or 2 strokes, not 3).
http://www.a-chi.jp/htj_suuji.html
I think that the writings for 5 and 7 are totally weird.
I make my 5's the same way I make my S's. And my 7's...I've never put the serif at the end!
For the "7" we were taught both a vertical line at the beginning and to put a horizontal slash in the middle (as with capital Zs), but I stopped bothering with that by grade 2.
JimmySeal Wrote:I laugh to imagine how quickly my JTE's head would have exploded if I ever tried marking papers with circles for wrong answers and checkmarks for right answers.I'm still pretty new, so I don't get this. I get that - as with any culture - there are different ways to mark correct and incorrect, but what are the checkmarks and circles interpreted as and what is the appropriate marks to use in Japan?
RE: teaching only the one way to write the 7: If people aren't getting jobs because they wrote the number 'wrong' and others look down on them as being stupid or what ever for using the wrong order, using different style versions in class would be of a disservice I would think.
It is one thing to see variations in the world, but to be taught those variations in a classroom setting from someone in an authoritative position, some students may start to assume those variations are acceptable all while in a culture where they are not (according to the comments in this thread re: applications being 'filed' etc... I personally don't know anything LOL)
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - gdaxeman - 2010-12-21
I think I agree with zigmonty: when you are learning another language, you should be open to anything related to it and not get unnecessarily upset with the way natives do something, including the fact that they don't have any strict rules for writing letters and numbers. No problem writing 7s the way they want to, but they should know that's not the 7s they'll usually find in handwritten texts by natives of the language, and that just because it's different doesn't mean it's wrong.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - gdaxeman - 2010-12-21
TheCuriosity Wrote:I'm still pretty new, so I don't get this. I get that - as with any culture - there are different ways to mark correct and incorrect, but what are the checkmarks and circles interpreted as and what is the appropriate marks to use in Japan?In Japan crosses (Xs/checks) are generally used to indicate incorrect and negative alternatives, and circles the correct and positive ones, while in many western countries both Xs and circles can be used to indicate correct answers, or one is used to indicate the opposite of the other (with no strict rules).
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - zigmonty - 2010-12-21
TheCuriosity Wrote:I still write 5s like that, with the horizontal being the final stroke, left to right. I see a lot of S's though. It's interesting that they write the 1 as just a vertical line. That's how i write it but i thought that'd be a leading candiate for a serif as it's often confused with lower case L and capital I depending on how you write those.Asriel Wrote:For what it's worth:How the '5' is written in that is exactly how I was taught in school
http://www.a-chi.jp/htj_suuji.html
I think that the writings for 5 and 7 are totally weird.
I make my 5's the same way I make my S's. And my 7's...I've never put the serif at the end!
TheCuriosity Wrote:RE: teaching only the one way to write the 7: If people aren't getting jobs because they wrote the number 'wrong' and others look down on them as being stupid or what ever for using the wrong order, using different style versions in class would be of a disservice I would think.The contrarian in me wants to say that it is precisely because stuff like this is taught in such a defined way in school that anyone who doesn't follow it in adulthood is looked down upon. If it weren't taught as such a strong rule, then eventually it'd stop being seen as a sign you're uneducated if you do it "wrong". Sucks to be the first generation though...
It is one thing to see variations in the world, but to be taught those variations in a classroom setting from someone in an authoritative position, some students may start to assume those variations are acceptable all while in a culture where they are not (according to the comments in this thread re: applications being 'filed' etc... I personally don't know anything LOL)
Honestly, i'm beyond criticizing this stuff though. Japanese culture != western culture (ok, so that's a bit nebulous itself). The japanese seem to have a need to make everything a formal process rather than relying on individual creativity. Certainly Toyota do (i've never been to japan, so i can't comment). I'm nowhere near arrogant enough to say our way is better. I mean, what is gained by having many different ways to write a number? It's hardly useful individuality, is it? Westerners have a tendency to draw outside the lines for the sake of doing so, rather than to accomplish anything.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - Gingerninja - 2010-12-21
I've been told repeatedly that my 5's and 6's are almost indistinguishable at times (which was fun the week I did an internship at an accounting firm.) and if I'm tired my 5's will occasionally look like 3's
Some kids in england write 0's 1's 4's and 7's differently, but it's never going to cause an issue with a native speaker over what is written.
I mean we never write 4 the way it is written there <<<
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - caivano - 2010-12-21
JimmySeal Wrote:I laugh to imagine how quickly my JTE's head would have exploded if I ever tried marking papers with circles for wrong answers and checkmarks for right answers.I've always used ticks and crosses when marking stuff as an ALT, no problem. Sometimes the kids are a bit confused at first but that's the way it goes with foreign language / culture. For the older kids I write joined up writing on the board, they're gonna come across it sooner or later
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - JimmySeal - 2010-12-21
Gingerninja Wrote:I mean we never write 4 the way it is written there <<<I wrote my 4s like that for a while, until BMG Music Club's scanners misread one of my 4s as a 9, and sent me the wrong CD in the mail. I've written my 4s with the top separated ever since.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - Biene - 2010-12-22
Learned something new again...
I'd never had thought that there are so strict rules how to write numbers in Japan, though I should have guessed.
Quote:Tzadeck wrote:That's actually a very nice example why one should learn about possible differences in writing, when learning another language, imho. Assume there would be a row of numbers, and I wouldn't have learned in school that some native English speakers write the "1" as a simple vertical line and the "7" without a slash through the middle, I would be in trouble. I would probably read the "7" as a "1" and the "1" as a vertical separation slash. So I think it's important for the kids in school (regardless of the country) to be at least aware of the fact, that not everyone writes the same.
This is pretty typical of an Australian's handwriting i think: http://font.downloadatoz.com/download/i … racter.png
If the native English/French/German/... teachers are forced to write the numbers the "Japanese way", then so be it. But it would be nice, if they could throw in once in a while a short "this-is-how-English/French/Spanish/German/...-natives-write"-lesson.
And to add to the how-I-learned-to-write-part, I learned to write the "7" with a wavy top line, and a slash through the middle (to distinguish from the "1" which is written in one stroke from middle-left-up and then sharp-vertical-down). The "5" was learned as a vertical line from left to right, and than the rest in one stroke from top to bottom. So my "5"s will never ever look like a "S". ;P Though my "9" is sometimes confused with a "4", too.
Quote:Asriel wrote:Are they actually serious about the cursive alphabet on that site!? It's utterly weird and seems to be a mixture of several different (and out of date) alphabets. The "z"s for example can be found in "Sütterlin" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin) and "Deutsche Kurrentschrift"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurrent), and the "q"s I've never seen before.
For what it's worth:
http://www.a-chi.jp/htj_suuji.html
Do the kids in Japan actually learn in general how to write in a cursive style, when they write English, French, German, etc.? I'm asking, since I got the impression that they don't, and that they have serious problems reading a text written in a cursive style (or worse, a mixture of cursive and block letters).
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - JimmySeal - 2010-12-22
Biene Wrote:Are they actually serious about the cursive alphabet on that site!? It's utterly weird and seems to be a mixture of several different (and out of date) alphabets.It looks completely normal to me. Maybe German cursive is different from English cursive?
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - Biene - 2010-12-22
Quote:JimmySeal wrote:It does?
It looks completely normal to me.
Then I guess German and English cursive are indeed quite different nowadays. I can, to a certain degree, read and write Sütterlin, though most people in Germany learn a so called "Ausgangsschrift" in school. And that looks quite different to Sütterlin or the alphabet posted on the japanese page. I guess I'll do some writing exercises with that alphabet, to get a bit more acquainted with it.
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - JimmySeal - 2010-12-22
Apparently this writing style is called D'Nealian, and was developed in the '70s specifically for writing English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Nealian
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - TheCuriosity - 2010-12-22
gdaxeman Wrote:In Japan crosses (Xs/checks) are generally used to indicate incorrect and negative alternatives, and circles the correct and positive ones, while in many western countries both Xs and circles can be used to indicate correct answers, or one is used to indicate the opposite of the other (with no strict rules).Thanks!
zigmonty Wrote:The contrarian in me wants to say that it is precisely because stuff like this is taught in such a defined way in school that anyone who doesn't follow it in adulthood is looked down upon. If it weren't taught as such a strong rule, then eventually it'd stop being seen as a sign you're uneducated if you do it "wrong". Sucks to be the first generation though...I agree. As Biene noted, I would think it would be beneficial to demonstrate how others write the number, but (for the time being until culture standards relax around this type of individuality) with emphasis that it isn't how it is accepted as standard in Japan so these kids don't look uneducated to everyone else that didn't learn these differences.
As 7's are only taught with the serif, I wonder what Japanese ESL students think when they use a keyboard and see the 7 sans-serif. "Stupid keyboard maker.. you would think quality control would have caught such an obvious error!"
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue1/Japanese_Keyboard.gif
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - pm215 - 2010-12-23
TheCuriosity Wrote:As 7's are only taught with the serif, I wonder what Japanese ESL students think when they use a keyboard and see the 7 sans-serif....the keyboard I'm using at the moment actually has a serif on the 7 :-)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41093256@N07/4729218988/in/photostream/#/
(I have the UK version but it has the same '7'.)
(On the offchance you wanted a serious answer, "printed version of kanji differs from standard handwritten version" is a pretty common phenomenon so I don't think odd-printed-numerals would seem any weirder.)
Japanese numbers: 5 & 7 - TheCuriosity - 2010-12-23
Whoa! Serif 7 on keyboard!
Thanks for the explanation. I didn't think of that, but it makes sense seeing the variations in the kanji I've learned thus far. (While I wasn't expecting a serious answer, I was really hoping for one.)