Chapter 5. Characters in Each Country

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Softwares with good grammar/context analyzer and large dictionary can convert longer phrases

or even a whole sentence at a time. However, we usually have to select one Kanji or word from

candidates the software shows, because Japanese language has many homophones. For example,

61 Kanjis whose readings are 'KAN' and 6 words whose readings are 'KOUKOU' are registered in

dictionary of

canna

. (Today, 2 Oct 1999, I saw a TV advertisement film of Japanese word proces 

sor which insists the software can correctly convert an input into 'a cafe which opened today', not

'a cafe which rotated today'. Though Japanese word 'KAITEN' means both 'open (a shop)' and

'rotate', the software knows it is more usual for a cafe to open than to rotate.)

The conversion from Hiragana to Kanji needs a large dictionary which contains the Kanji spelling

and readings of Japanese major words and conjugation or inflection. Thus proprietary softwares

tend to efficiently convert. They usually have dictionaries larger than few megabytes. Some of

these recent proprietary softwares even analyze the topic or meaning of the inputed Hiragana

sentence and choose the most appropriate homophone, though they often choose wrong ones.

Nowadays several proprietary conversion softwares such as ATOK, WNN6, and VJE for Linux

are sold in Japan.

Since it is complex and hard work for users to input Japanese characters, we don't want to in 

put Y (for YES) or N (for NO) in Japanese. We prefer learning such basic English words to in 

puting Japanese words by invoking conversion software, inputing Latin alphabetic expression of

Japanese, converting it into Hiragana, converting it into Kanji, choosing the correct Kanji, deter 

mining the correct Kanji, and ending the conversion software each time we need to input yes or

no or similar words.

5.1.10 More Detailed Discussions

Width of Characters

Different from European languages, Japanese characters should written in a fixed width. Ex 

ceptions arises when two symbols such as parentheses, periods and commas continue. Kerning

should be done for such cases if the software is a word processor. A text editor need not.

Ruby

Ruby is a small (usually 1/2 in length and 1/4 in area or a bit smaller) characters written above

(in horizontal direction) or at right side (in vertical direction) of the main text. This is usually used

to show a reading of difficult Kanji.

Japanized TeX can use ruby by using an extra macro. Word processors should have Ruby faculty.