I just saw saw a sign for a place -- advertising that they speak 日本语...

are you talking about the simplified Chinese character 语?

Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 333,000,000 for 日本语. (0.28 seconds)

Hm, seems they aren't the only one that uses that. Maybe it's not such a travesty?

I did the google search. It seems that most of the results are in chinese rather than japanese.

WHAT IS THAT! its kinda gross looking....

konakona50 Wrote:WHAT IS THAT! its kinda gross looking....

Welcome to simplified Chinese.

It would make sense for the Chinese to use the simplified character -- but not when a non-Chinese business is trying to attract Japanese people.

zodiac Wrote:I did the google search. It seems that most of the results are in chinese rather than japanese.

Yeah, it's the Chinese equivalent of 'We speak Spanish!' (written in English). Confused, yes. Travesty? No.

wccrawford Wrote:Yeah, it's the Chinese equivalent of 'We speak Spanish!' (written in English).

That's actually a pretty good analogy. The 日本人 would definitely recognize it[although maybe run away from the business hahaha]

Although it wasn't Chinese-run at all. Seems like the guy asked the chef at a Chinese restaurant or something hahaha.

This is just the result of trying to enter "日本語" in Chinese with a simplified Chinese input method. It's also not necessarily obvious that this would be a problem; the "Han Unification" in Unicode makes it pretty annoying to know when it's just a font problem and when the characters are actually distinguished from each other.

I remember a Japanese person showing that abbreviation for 言 ... letsee... hmm... I think it was in 1975.

So it's nothing new.

konakona50 Wrote:WHAT IS THAT! its kinda gross looking....

Haha, that's cute! ^_^

Raichu Wrote:I remember a Japanese person showing that abbreviation for 言 ... letsee... hmm... I think it was in 1975.

So it's nothing new.

Yes, but it's not very professional to use that abbreviation in typeset text.

There are WAY worse travesties than that. At least that follows the basic shape and structure just like 马 for horse etc. Let me add though, that in VERY FEW cases the simplified form is actually following the original character as it was written prior to the Han dynasty era.

Every time you write a simplified character, an angel loses its wings.

Japan simplified heaps of characters. 気 花 来 灯 学 読 to name a few common ones are Japanese simplifications of the original Chinese. Simplified Chinese, however, goes a lot further...

Raichu Wrote:Japan simplified heaps of characters. 気 花 来 灯 学 読 to name a few common ones are Japanese simplifications of the original Chinese. Simplified Chinese, however, goes a lot further...

Some would even say it goes too far!

Is this an accepted handwritten version of the 言 radical or would Japanese cringe if I hand wrote it? It's used so often I really want to use some quicker version!

I'm pretty sure it's acceptable. How common it is, I have no idea.

However, it may look strange coming from a non-native if your kanji doesn't already look native-like, but I don't know...