Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Japanese Student Guild

Back to Guilds

The place to learn about Japan and all facets of Japanese culture 

Tags: Japanese, Student, Guild 

Reply Learning Japanese
Why no Spaces?

Quick Reply

Enter both words below, separated by a space:

Can't read the text? Click here

Submit

mazuac

4,500 Points
  • Forum Sophomore 300
  • Statustician 100
  • Contributor 150
PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:05 am


User Image
He has Redeemed Me!Though I


In Japanese, I know that you don't put spaces between the words. But why? Doesn't this confuse the reader seeing as the sentence's words are all strung together?

User Image

am undeserving, He gave his life for mine.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:42 pm


They seem to read fine without spaces. But not every sentence is composed completely of kanji, usually there are hiragana that act as subject/object markers and whatnot. Plus understanding how the kanji are compounded to form words also helps. It's just something else to get used to.

Death T-2

Dapper Dabbler

21,900 Points
  • Advent Attendee 50
  • Frozen Sleuth 100
  • Mark Twain 100

mazuac

4,500 Points
  • Forum Sophomore 300
  • Statustician 100
  • Contributor 150
PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 2:28 pm


Death T-2
They seem to read fine without spaces. But not every sentence is composed completely of kanji, usually there are hiragana that act as subject/object markers and whatnot. Plus understanding how the kanji are compounded to form words also helps. It's just something else to get used to.
User Image
He has Redeemed Me!Though I


Hm, I suppose your right. But would you or anyone out there know how to use Kanji? Like... to make the word "tahata" (fields) I would use the kanji "ta" and the kanji "hata." Or could I use the Hiragana "ta" and the kanji "hata?"


User Image

am undeserving, He gave his life for mine.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:14 pm


mazuac
Death T-2
They seem to read fine without spaces. But not every sentence is composed completely of kanji, usually there are hiragana that act as subject/object markers and whatnot. Plus understanding how the kanji are compounded to form words also helps. It's just something else to get used to.
User Image
He has Redeemed Me!Though I


Hm, I suppose your right. But would you or anyone out there know how to use Kanji? Like... to make the word "tahata" (fields) I would use the kanji "ta" and the kanji "hata." Or could I use the Hiragana "ta" and the kanji "hata?"


User Image

am undeserving, He gave his life for mine.
Kanji for fields, followed by an hiragana that comes after it. As a quick side note, Kanji can be read many different ways, so the Kanji for fields may not always be read as "Tahata"

Koiyuki
Vice Captain

Mind-boggling Codger

1,500 Points
  • Signature Look 250
  • Dressed Up 200
  • Bunny Spotter 50

mazuac

4,500 Points
  • Forum Sophomore 300
  • Statustician 100
  • Contributor 150
PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:52 am


Koiyuki
mazuac
Death T-2
They seem to read fine without spaces. But not every sentence is composed completely of kanji, usually there are hiragana that act as subject/object markers and whatnot. Plus understanding how the kanji are compounded to form words also helps. It's just something else to get used to.
User Image
He has Redeemed Me!Though I


Hm, I suppose your right. But would you or anyone out there know how to use Kanji? Like... to make the word "tahata" (fields) I would use the kanji "ta" and the kanji "hata." Or could I use the Hiragana "ta" and the kanji "hata?"


User Image

am undeserving, He gave his life for mine.
Kanji for fields, followed by an hiragana that comes after it. As a quick side note, Kanji can be read many different ways, so the Kanji for fields may not always be read as "Tahata"
User Image
He has Redeemed Me!Though I


Ohh~ I see. I am practicing Kanji and Hiragana at the moment. Like yesterday I made the sentence "History is awesome!" by using kanji "reki and shi" to form history, then using "wa (ha) sugoii desu yo!" in Hiragana~


User Image

am undeserving, He gave his life for mine.
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:41 pm


Death T-2
They seem to read fine without spaces. But not every sentence is composed completely of kanji, usually there are hiragana that act as subject/object markers and whatnot. Plus understanding how the kanji are compounded to form words also helps. It's just something else to get used to.
Well, in Chinese there are only characters and spaces are still not needed. I think it's because there is a large variety of characters (going into the thousands) so that you get the word from one or two "blocks." In languages like English though, there are only symbols for sound. It's hard to explain... but when I see a japanese sentence with only hiragana it can be very hard on my eyes.

TurtIe Tracks


IdiotbyDefault
Crew

PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 2:50 am


The only time this ever would become a problem is if they don't use kanji at all and just Hiragana and katagana. However, outside of some children's books and the dialogue spoken by the king in the Katamari Damashi games, that shouldn't be a problem (chances are if you known and seen enough Japanese, you can still kind of figure out most of what's being said anyway, but Kanji does help meaning a lot).
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 4:30 pm


It's just how it developed in my opinion....
I mean, you can still read English when it's not spaced....
I don't think there's a particular advantage to either though... besides english having more / compact characters to fit in.
You'll probably find spaced hiragana easier to read for a while until you get used to it...
Japanese people obviously learned it before us.... so they're probably going to be comfortable with it.

jmpeer

Reply
Learning Japanese

 
Manage Your Items
Other Stuff
Get GCash
Offers
Get Items
More Items
Where Everyone Hangs Out
Other Community Areas
Virtual Spaces
Fun Stuff
Gaia's Games
Mini-Games
Play with GCash
Play with Platinum