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Using Japanese terms when you don't know what they mean
Path: BadHabits   · Prev: PlayingThroughLunchAndArrivingLateToClassAndGettingChewedOutByTheOtherTeachers   · Next: PlayingGoAtWork
   

SAS: Using Japanese terms when you don't know what they mean is a bad habit, particularly when you're writing in English and there is a perfectly good English term you could have used instead. I've just gone through and fixed all the misuse of kata that I could find. Misuse of nakade is so prevalent in Sensei's Library that it would be a brave person indeed who decides to tackle it. And sen means "tournament", not "title match".

SAS: I think I've mostly fixed the nakade stuff now.
DaveSigaty: Within this [ext] RGG thread you can see Bill beat me up several years ago on the grammar of nakade. However, stubborn person that I am, I still do not think that being 'correct' is being 'right' :-) It seems to me that by 'fixing' the use of the term nakade, we substitute implicitly something like 'big eye shapes that can be reduced to a single eye by a nakade'. I think that the common use of nakade in English to mean both the moves and the vulnerable shapes is far more sensible.
SAS: But "nakade" when referring to a shape means the shape after the nakade has been played. This is not how it was being used in the articles I fixed.

Stefan: Well, brave or not - if you see stuff that you think is wrong, fixing it one item at a time would be much appreciated.

On a more general level, I think you see a bad habit where there isn't one. There is a difference between ignorance and a bad habit. People don't use these terms while they don't know what they mean. They use them while they think they do, i.e. with good intentions. Who was it again who told us that you don't know what you don't know? But leave it in the list. You and I are probably just disagreeing on definition, and the remedy is the same as for the other habits anyway: education.

On yet another note, as happens often, you seem to forget that not everybody in the world is a native speaker in English. For a majority of us both the Japanese AND the 'perfectly good English term' are foreign and new. In that respect, I personally prefer learning the Japanese term. I consider these more universal from a go point of view, and therefore more useful for communication in the field. In my own country, for example, which has three official languages.


SAS: Putting this under bad habits was sort of a joke. I didn't know where else to put it.

I certainly didn't forget that not everyone in the world is a native English speaker, but I was talking about go terms used when writing in English. (I didn't state this explicitly because I thought it was obvious from context. I've inserted a few extra words to make it clear now.) It's reasonable to suppose that someone reading or writing English has some knowledge of English, but whether they have any knowledge of Japanese is another matter.

As for Japanese go terms being more universal, this may be true, but isn't really a consideration when writing in English. (I wouldn't expect someone writing in Dutch to put all the go terms in Japanese just to make it easier for non-Dutch speakers to understand them.)


Some comments:

 It's reasonable to suppose that someone reading or writing
 English has some knowledge of English, but whether they have
 any knowledge of Japanese is another matter.

We're not merely writing in English, we write about Go and use English because it is a/the international language. Writing about Go, it makes sense to use Go terminology, and for historical reasons the Japanese have become widely accepted.

Stefan meant that the likelihood of misusing Japanese Go terms is not that much greater than the likelihood of violating English. In fact, I'm sure we do this all the time.

When you enter a martial arts school (Aikido, Judo and the likes), you will also learn a lot of Japanese words. I think this is very charming and is also more likely to put you in the proper state of mind. Language and culture are tightly linked. Maybe Chinese and Korean have had the time to develop alternatives for the Japanese terminology but English certainly hasn't.

I'm sure you can do without this disclosure, yet I want to emphasize how I appreciate your efforts on SL. --Dieter


I agree with Dieter. It's as simple as this: everything has its own jargon which makes communication between peers easier and harder to get into for laymen. I know some go terms in dutch, but I wouldn't be sure how that go term would be called in other languages.

I think most people use terms like 'atari' and 'ko' without knowing what it means in japanese, but it's a hell of a lot easier than using translations of those terms, since the terms have meaning for every go player. For that matter, it could've been korean or russian or whatever.

Jargon is a blessing, since it provides a common terminology for all languages to use.

SAS wrote:

(I wouldn't expect someone writing in Dutch to put all the go terms in Japanese just to make it easier for non-Dutch speakers to understand them.)

I wouldn't expect someone writing in English (native or not) to use go-terms that are only used in English speaking countries, because then I'd have to know about English go terms, German go terms in German texts, French go terms, etc. UNLESS they are primarily meant for people coming from those countries.

If the text is meant for international readers, they should also use the international go terms, which so happens to be japanese. --ElDraco


SAS:

I think we may be talking at cross-purposes here. People using common go terms like "ko" and "atari" do know what they mean as applied to go, so this isn't a problem. Moreover, there are no good English alternatives to these words. Similarly for "hane", "seki", "kyu", "dan", "joseki", "komi", etc.

But English-language go books overwhelmingly use "invasion" rather than "uchikomi", "leaning attack" rather than "motare", "pincer" rather than "hasami" or "-basami", "tournament" rather than "sen", "placement" rather than "oki", "handicap go" rather than "oki-go", "shape" or "good shape" rather than "katachi", "shoulder hit" rather than "kata-tsuki", etc., etc. Therefore I simply do not understand Dieter's claim that English hasn't had time to develop alternatives to Japanese terminology. Nor do I understand why people want English-language pages on Sensei's Library to use different terminology than English-language go books generally use.


Dieter: Hm, I agree with you SAS. Thanks to have taken the time to clarify with some examples.


Mike Kaulbars: It seems to me everyone makes good points, hence a difficult situation. Many fields have gone through this period where something has gone international and there is a need to standardize terms in order to be able to communicate. Ideally some appropriate body wrestles with all of these considerations and designates the "offical" terms which are then the standard.

In the meantime is there any reason not to suggest certain conventions on SL? Perhaps using the GoTerms page as a place to indicate the preferred term for use on SL, as well as insisting that all terms used anywhere on SL appear on the GoTerms page? I would find that helpful, although I don't know how those decisions might be made or by whom.

Regardless, thank you all for thoughtful and helpful discussions, here and throughout SL. It is much appreciated.


ElDraco: SAS, I agree with the first part, but there is still a difference between english language books and english language pages. English language literature isn't meant to be international (with some exceptions), so your comparison to english literature is not valid.

Anyway, I don't mind as long as people don't get it into their heads to translate something as 'ko' and yell 'eternity' (or 'eeuwigheid' or 'Ewigkeit' or 'eternite'), which is a perfectly understandable english word. But I think we all agree on this point.

Mike, I doubt if some international standard would be useful, since everyone will be using their own language anyway. Though it would be useful to agree to some standard on SL. It would be a shame if you couldn't find a page just because it's the english term (you don't know about) and you were looking for a japanese term. Even more a shame if you went ahead and created a whole new page for that term.


Mike Kaulbars: El Draco. True, but the setting of Intl standards tends to have the following consequences. Once there is a set of standards, national and local folks all create synonym sources so that people know what the regional synonym is. These synonym sources introduce precision; eg tfdr = tesuji, not "a concept sort of like tesuji but not exactly the same, and overlapping some other concept".

The standard term then becomes your most searchable item because, if nothing else, you will at least find the synonym source which means you can always equate 'your term' = 'standard term' =' local term'. It really does help.

As I said, many fields have gone through this for centuries, from biology (which chose Latin standards for species names) to computing (which has largely defaulted to english).

Regardless, for those who do know what they are talking about (not me), making a consistent practice of putting synonyms in the GoTerms as well as definitions would help address the problem of correct usage and finding things. --Mike



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