A call to downgrade English in Chinese schools is fueling discussion over its value for students, careers and China's global competitiveness in the age of AI.
I’ve worked in Japan for years which has plenty of people terrible at English, especially in the older generations. They find (or these days google/ai/whatever translate) any documentation they need and just learn the various built-in names for things as needed. This doesn’t stop them from programming. There are websites where people have done that and uploaded the resulting translation and/or answer questions in Japanese about things. I stumbled upon similar sites in Chinese by accident.
Identifiers in code that didn’t support non-ascii identifiers were just romanized Japanese (and I assume Chinese does this as well). So print(zeikomi_nedan); or something where that is the variable name. They don’t redefine alias print in some library or something (though I’m sure a small minority might, I’ve never seen it).
I have seen some kanji-based identifier names in languages with default utf-8 support, but I still don’t think that’s the norm, especially if non-Japanese-speakers are expected to read the code such as in shared projects.
But they don’t always mean what you think 写真はイメージです。 is a classic. “[the] picture is an image”. Of course it is! Well, except it means image in the sense of a representative sample image, not an image of the exact thing. It’s basically a disclaimer they put on product images in case it doesn’t look exactly alike.
Having worked at a company where all the code was written by Japanese for Japanese-speakers, it’s just nouns in romaji for variables, something verb-y for functions. Some function names had particles as a part of that (still in romaji). No counters that I recall in code (though used in comments).
I’ve worked in Japan for years which has plenty of people terrible at English, especially in the older generations. They find (or these days google/ai/whatever translate) any documentation they need and just learn the various built-in names for things as needed. This doesn’t stop them from programming. There are websites where people have done that and uploaded the resulting translation and/or answer questions in Japanese about things. I stumbled upon similar sites in Chinese by accident.
Identifiers in code that didn’t support non-ascii identifiers were just romanized Japanese (and I assume Chinese does this as well). So
print(zeikomi_nedan);or something where that is the variable name. They don’t redefine alias print in some library or something (though I’m sure a small minority might, I’ve never seen it).I have seen some kanji-based identifier names in languages with default utf-8 support, but I still don’t think that’s the norm, especially if non-Japanese-speakers are expected to read the code such as in shared projects.
Japanese doesn’t count because half the words for things are just English with a Japanese accent!
Drink your koohii and maybe have an aisu kuriimu later to understand what I’m talking about 😁
But they don’t always mean what you think 写真はイメージです。 is a classic. “[the] picture is an image”. Of course it is! Well, except it means image in the sense of a representative sample image, not an image of the exact thing. It’s basically a disclaimer they put on product images in case it doesn’t look exactly alike.
Yes yes. You don’t need to remind us all that Japanese is stupidly complicated. Everyone who’s watched a bit of anime knows that 🤣
Sooo… Let’s say you want to actually use Japanese in your code. Which of the three writing systems would you choose?
Also, do you start counters at zero or do you…
Noun + Particle + Number + Counter?
I mean, it must be a real pain to first have to figure out what it is you’re counting before you can actually start the index 🤔
Also, make sure your fonts follow the shinto stroke ordering! Otherwise your schoolteacher will haunt you from their grave and curse your program!
😁
Having worked at a company where all the code was written by Japanese for Japanese-speakers, it’s just nouns in romaji for variables, something verb-y for functions. Some function names had particles as a part of that (still in romaji). No counters that I recall in code (though used in comments).
So serious! I was just being silly.
I bow my head in apology, for making you consider my statements with such intense defensive posturing!