Kanji that vary (significantly) by font.

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Reply #1 - 2010 April 26, 10:07 am
twinzen Member
From: Norway Registered: 2009-05-31 Posts: 46

I just found a kanji that changes dramatically depending on which font I use, namely 誤. (1899-Mistake) On the site and in Heisig's book it looks like the character for say next to the character for give, (言 and 呉) but with other fonts it looks like the character for say next to a "mouth" over "heavens" which is indeed the way I see it in this very post I am writing now. Why is this?

Reply #2 - 2010 April 26, 10:45 am
Katsuo M.O.D.
From: Tokyo Registered: 2007-02-06 Posts: 887 Website

I think the "mouth" over "heaven" version appears in certain Chinese fonts, but not in any Japanese fonts. You can set a preferred font in your browser.

Reply #3 - 2010 April 26, 1:08 pm
esgrove Member
From: Kaizu, Gifu, Japan Registered: 2007-02-16 Posts: 113

What font does Heisig use in the RtK boks?

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Reply #4 - 2010 April 26, 3:25 pm
hereticalrants Member
From: Winterland Registered: 2009-10-23 Posts: 289

Get some Japanese fonts.

I had to download a bunch and set them as the prefered fonts in my browser.

Chinese fonts are just annoying wink

Reply #5 - 2010 April 26, 10:06 pm
Katsuo M.O.D.
From: Tokyo Registered: 2007-02-06 Posts: 887 Website

esgrove wrote:

What font does Heisig use in the RtK boks?

Mincho (明朝体)

Reply #6 - 2010 April 26, 11:22 pm
Offshore Member
From: Pennsylvania Registered: 2009-02-03 Posts: 210

No clue what font I'm using (never downloaded or changed anything before) and that kanji still shows up just like "say" next to "give" on my screen.

Reply #7 - 2010 April 27, 12:20 am
hereticalrants Member
From: Winterland Registered: 2009-10-23 Posts: 289

Offshore wrote:

No clue what font I'm using (never downloaded or changed anything before) and that kanji still shows up just like "say" next to "give" on my screen.

That's the way I've always written it wink

I switched to a Chinese font just to see, and now it looks like "say" next to a "mouth" over "heavens," just as the OP describes.

Reply #8 - 2010 April 27, 12:32 am
FooSoft Member
From: Seattle, WA Registered: 2009-02-15 Posts: 513 Website

Yeah, some fonts have characters that are more Chinese than others. I use mincho/vlgothic fonts, and that works great for showing me the characters as I learned them smile

The differences between Chinese and Japanese ways of writing the characters aren't that frequent, and usually consistant. I can recognize both ways for the sake of reviews and reading, so it doesn't really bother me anymore when I do Japanese stuff on computers that don't have the aforementioned fonts installed.

Reply #9 - 2010 May 01, 3:24 am
fugu68 Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2005-11-30 Posts: 115

I'm fairly sure that utf-8 encoded pages viewed in IE7 and IE8 (under XP and Vista at least) will show characters in the Chinese simplified font (Simsun) by default, IF no font is specified in the page AND your system locale is set to English (or presumably anything other than Japanese too).

On the systems I've tested, character 誤 [1899-Mistake] shows up as the Chinese variant when those conditions exist.

EITHER setting your system locale to Japanese (which has some other side-effects), OR changing the browser font settings for Chinese simplified to a Japanese font (e.g. MS P Gothic) will work around this.

(To test this, try pasting 誤 into the google search page for example, then change the system locale or change the browser fonts for Chinese simplified to a Japanese font.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification

There is some discussion about this problem here: http://forums.x-cult.org/topic/3501-pro … entry66059 (Anyone got a more official source??)

Last edited by fugu68 (2010 May 01, 3:34 am)

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