4 ms·

>it's a pretty random tossup between someone introducing themselves in family name first order or family name last order, even when speaking Japanese. Same in

by spats1990 7y ago

>it's a pretty random tossup between someone introducing themselves in family name first order or family name last order, even when speaking Japanese. Same in Korea, except in Korean it's fairly rare to use "you" as a mode of address and everybody has a title or family term of some kind so you can often get away with outright forgetting/never learning somebody's actual given name. But if I fill out a form or something, even if I have to write my name in Hangul, the chances are really high that somebody will assume I've used the western system because I'm a foreigner and my FamilyName is actually my GivenName. There are just way too many variables that can creep in. -Name in Hangul with western order -Name in Hangul with East Asian order -Name in roman letters with western order -Name in roman letters with East Asian order -something else (mangled, middle name acting as family name, etc) The other day, a bank didn't let me transfer money from an account I had with them to an account I had at another bank because, they said, my name was written differently in Hangul than in the receiving bank account details. I said I didn't write my name in Hangul at any time while setting up either of the bank accounts, otherwise there wouldn't be a discrepancy. Didn't work. Also I know for a fact that bank systems here just cut off names that exceed character limits in both English and Korean. I think the Korean government could fix this if it automatically issued a canonical hangul version of foreigners' names when they get ID cards here, but it will never happen, I think, for reasons that go far beyond immediate/large/practical concerns about updating systems etc. I just grin and bear it while thinking of that patio11 post that often gets shared here, where he says he has broken many name systems in Japan just by putting his name into them.[1] That has been my exact experience in Korea. Finally: regarding Abe's New Word Order, it seems like too much of a coincidence that the summer olympics are in Japan next year and the Olympic system, as far as I remember, capitalises family names. edit: I may regret this, and it's kind of off-topic, but from what I understand about Abe, it makes a certain kind of sense that he does not want the Japanese to follow western naming orders in English anymore - he is an ultranationalist and ethnonationalist and a member of Nippon Kaigi[2]. [1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Kaigi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Kaigi

Freak_NL 7y ago
> […] canonical hangul version of foreigners' names […] Like a list of names with their Hangul version? The problem is that you can't know how someone's name is pronounced for sure. In Japanese I provide the katakana reading for my name myself, because the chance of meeting a native Japanese speaker who can correctly derive the reading of my Dutch name in katakana is remote. Fortunately, in Japan it is already customary to ask for a name's reading in kana, because kanji readings too can be ambiguous. Names are interesting in that their pronunciation for the same spelling can vary even within a single language depending on where the person is from.
- spats1990 7y ago
  >Like a list of names with their Hangul version? The problem is that you can't know how someone's name is pronounced for sure. Just how their name would be said if written in hangul. Ideal but unlikely: let the person choose themselves, with assistance. Much more likely but acceptable: some government clerk decides. The important/useful thing would be to have a hangul version set officially and not have multiple versions at the whims of bank clerks. I really meant canonical, I didn't say anything about accurate pronunciation. It goes like this for Koreans writing their names in English as well. Because there have been two official romanisation systems for kor-eng, you get a lot of people preferring one or the other, and then you get people who just prefer a certain English spelling. edit: Just like in the opposite direction, English can't really properly represent Korean sounds. hangul is actually more versatile here because there are very few silent letters, etc, it's (with the usual exceptions) mostly spelling=sound. Do you find that the katakana approximates the native pronunciation of your name well? The Korean government already has, if I recall, an official list of hangul readings for words/names in a lot of different languages. The thing that used to throw me off is French and Spanish words in Hangul that are common in English, like "genre" which is a loanword in Korean too but pronounced "장르" (like.. "jang-leu"). To me, the korean version weirdly sounds more faithful (within confines of syllable blocks) to french "genre" than the english version does. Am terrible at french though.
  - Freak_NL 7y ago
    > Do you find that the katakana approximates the native pronunciation of your name well? Nope. That is a linguistic impossibility; mostly due to the lack of the schwa vowel (ə) in Japanese (Korean does have that, so my name is easier in hangul as far as vowels are concerned). The katakana do approach it tolerably, and it is in essence my name when speaking Japanese. With katakana and hangul it is always a matter of compromising in one direction or another. If you have a very common name there will be common transcriptions that most people will stick to, but you can't prepare a list of all foreign names in the world, so inevitably two people will prefer different compromises, especially if they are fluent in that language. Personally, I would be very much miffed if someone forces a specific katakana reading of my given and family name on me. That actually happened once when I was in Japan as an exchange student at Rikkyō University. I don't normally use my second given name, so on one of the numerous forms that inevitably end up in front of you in Japan someone added their own interpretation of how that would sound in katakana. Some college administrative worker took the katakana provided in earlier communication for my first given name and family name and made up their own attempt based on how my second given name might be read in English (I'm Dutch). I was not amused.

Freak_NL 7y ago

> […] canonical hangul version of foreigners' names […] Like a list of names with their Hangul version? The problem is that you can't know how someone's name is pronounced for sure. In Japanese I provide the katakana reading for my name myself, because the chance of meeting a native Japanese speaker who can correctly derive the reading of my Dutch name in katakana is remote. Fortunately, in Japan it is already customary to ask for a name's reading in kana, because kanji readings too can be ambiguous. Names are interesting in that their pronunciation for the same spelling can vary even within a single language depending on where the person is from.

spats1990 7y ago
>Like a list of names with their Hangul version? The problem is that you can't know how someone's name is pronounced for sure. Just how their name would be said if written in hangul. Ideal but unlikely: let the person choose themselves, with assistance. Much more likely but acceptable: some government clerk decides. The important/useful thing would be to have a hangul version set officially and not have multiple versions at the whims of bank clerks. I really meant canonical, I didn't say anything about accurate pronunciation. It goes like this for Koreans writing their names in English as well. Because there have been two official romanisation systems for kor-eng, you get a lot of people preferring one or the other, and then you get people who just prefer a certain English spelling. edit: Just like in the opposite direction, English can't really properly represent Korean sounds. hangul is actually more versatile here because there are very few silent letters, etc, it's (with the usual exceptions) mostly spelling=sound. Do you find that the katakana approximates the native pronunciation of your name well? The Korean government already has, if I recall, an official list of hangul readings for words/names in a lot of different languages. The thing that used to throw me off is French and Spanish words in Hangul that are common in English, like "genre" which is a loanword in Korean too but pronounced "장르" (like.. "jang-leu"). To me, the korean version weirdly sounds more faithful (within confines of syllable blocks) to french "genre" than the english version does. Am terrible at french though.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  > Do you find that the katakana approximates the native pronunciation of your name well? Nope. That is a linguistic impossibility; mostly due to the lack of the schwa vowel (ə) in Japanese (Korean does have that, so my name is easier in hangul as far as vowels are concerned). The katakana do approach it tolerably, and it is in essence my name when speaking Japanese. With katakana and hangul it is always a matter of compromising in one direction or another. If you have a very common name there will be common transcriptions that most people will stick to, but you can't prepare a list of all foreign names in the world, so inevitably two people will prefer different compromises, especially if they are fluent in that language. Personally, I would be very much miffed if someone forces a specific katakana reading of my given and family name on me. That actually happened once when I was in Japan as an exchange student at Rikkyō University. I don't normally use my second given name, so on one of the numerous forms that inevitably end up in front of you in Japan someone added their own interpretation of how that would sound in katakana. Some college administrative worker took the katakana provided in earlier communication for my first given name and family name and made up their own attempt based on how my second given name might be read in English (I'm Dutch). I was not amused.