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When Japanese text is written vertically, Roman letters (with the exception of short acronyms) are indeed written with a 90-degree clockwise rotation. If you we

When Japanese text is written vertically, Roman letters (with the exception of short acronyms) are indeed written with a 90-degree clockwise rotation. If you were reading a novel in Japanese that contains a brief English quotation, you would turn the book 90-degrees counterclockwise and then read it normally as you would in English. Non-fiction or technical works where English quotations, code examples, or mathematical formulas would be common are not usually written vertically.

claudiawerner 7y ago
As true as that may be, it's silly to be doing that with a lot of text on a website, which is primarily viewed on a computer monitor (or phone, but most people have auto-rotation on their phones enabled all the time anyway). When every colour name has the English underneath it, it seems like this would be a prime use case for left-to-right, not top-to-bottom.
- goodside 7y ago
  Japanese readers don’t literally rotate the book unless it’s a long quotation. For names or a quote of several words you just get used to reading rotated text. I’m not arguing this is a good design. The parent post said “... and unless Japanese people read roman letters differently than we do...”, so I was pointing out that, in this context, they do. Tategaki (vertical script) is a traditional style and, anecdotally, younger Japanese people find it harder to read than yokogaki (horizontal script). Using tategaki on websites at all is unusual.
  - hattori31 7y ago
    > Tategaki (vertical script) is a traditional style and, anecdotally, younger Japanese people find it harder to read than yokogaki (horizontal script) Hello from Japan. Searching in Japanese gives no result and I fail to comprehend how is this even possible, given that almost everything is written in tategaki. Where did you get this info?
    - goodside 7y ago
      I think I remembered reading it here: https://www.learnwitholiver.com/japanese/blog-post-2 https://www.learnwitholiver.com/japanese/blog-post-2 My mistake. Thanks for the correction.
- knolax 7y ago
  The aesthetics would be ruined by left to right writing. You don't make a website about "traditional" colors and purposely use a Mincho font and not also use the traditional orientation. The color name underneath isn't "English" either, it's Japanese written with Latin characters. The convention is to rotate left to right scripts when using vertical typesetting, complaining about it is like complaining about an American site spelling "colour" as color.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    >You don't make a website about "traditional" colors and purposely use a Mincho font and not also use the traditional orientation. Actually, you do. It would be an easier experience for the target audience (which I assume isn't primarily Japanese speakers, otherwise they wouldn't be using romaji for the names). I have nothing against aesthetic purity, but it gets in the way of content here. They are not inextricable. >The convention is to rotate left to right scripts when using vertical typesetting, complaining about it is like complaining about an American site spelling "colour" as color. The convention is fine; adherence to the convention in a medium to which the convention is clearly not suited is what I'm taking issue with. It may be fine for printed media - that doesn't make it fine, in this quantity, for the web. A better comparison would be a website for, say, an Arabic colour palette and the romanization is written backwards. I have no trouble learning Japanese by reading books and manga with tategaki - but to say that it is the style best suited for anything trying to be "aesthetically Japanese", no matter the content or medium, is what I disagree with.
    - knolax 7y ago
      > which I assume isn't primarily Japanese speakers, otherwise they wouldn't be using romaji for the names Romaji gets used for stylistic purposes for plenty of things that aren't meant for non-Japanese. Surely as a manga reader you would notice this? I don't see what about a computer screen makes rotating text impossible. People don't literally rotate the thing they're reading when it's done in print either. Text rotated 90° gets used posters (which you can't rotate) too. I've even seen it done in America.
JdeBP 7y ago
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~sq6s-osm/tategaki.html http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~sq6s-osm/tategaki.html has numbers as an exception, too.

claudiawerner 7y ago

As true as that may be, it's silly to be doing that with a lot of text on a website, which is primarily viewed on a computer monitor (or phone, but most people have auto-rotation on their phones enabled all the time anyway). When every colour name has the English underneath it, it seems like this would be a prime use case for left-to-right, not top-to-bottom.

goodside 7y ago
Japanese readers don’t literally rotate the book unless it’s a long quotation. For names or a quote of several words you just get used to reading rotated text. I’m not arguing this is a good design. The parent post said “... and unless Japanese people read roman letters differently than we do...”, so I was pointing out that, in this context, they do. Tategaki (vertical script) is a traditional style and, anecdotally, younger Japanese people find it harder to read than yokogaki (horizontal script). Using tategaki on websites at all is unusual.
- hattori31 7y ago
  > Tategaki (vertical script) is a traditional style and, anecdotally, younger Japanese people find it harder to read than yokogaki (horizontal script) Hello from Japan. Searching in Japanese gives no result and I fail to comprehend how is this even possible, given that almost everything is written in tategaki. Where did you get this info?
  - goodside 7y ago
    I think I remembered reading it here: https://www.learnwitholiver.com/japanese/blog-post-2 https://www.learnwitholiver.com/japanese/blog-post-2 My mistake. Thanks for the correction.
knolax 7y ago
The aesthetics would be ruined by left to right writing. You don't make a website about "traditional" colors and purposely use a Mincho font and not also use the traditional orientation. The color name underneath isn't "English" either, it's Japanese written with Latin characters. The convention is to rotate left to right scripts when using vertical typesetting, complaining about it is like complaining about an American site spelling "colour" as color.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  >You don't make a website about "traditional" colors and purposely use a Mincho font and not also use the traditional orientation. Actually, you do. It would be an easier experience for the target audience (which I assume isn't primarily Japanese speakers, otherwise they wouldn't be using romaji for the names). I have nothing against aesthetic purity, but it gets in the way of content here. They are not inextricable. >The convention is to rotate left to right scripts when using vertical typesetting, complaining about it is like complaining about an American site spelling "colour" as color. The convention is fine; adherence to the convention in a medium to which the convention is clearly not suited is what I'm taking issue with. It may be fine for printed media - that doesn't make it fine, in this quantity, for the web. A better comparison would be a website for, say, an Arabic colour palette and the romanization is written backwards. I have no trouble learning Japanese by reading books and manga with tategaki - but to say that it is the style best suited for anything trying to be "aesthetically Japanese", no matter the content or medium, is what I disagree with.
  - knolax 7y ago
    > which I assume isn't primarily Japanese speakers, otherwise they wouldn't be using romaji for the names Romaji gets used for stylistic purposes for plenty of things that aren't meant for non-Japanese. Surely as a manga reader you would notice this? I don't see what about a computer screen makes rotating text impossible. People don't literally rotate the thing they're reading when it's done in print either. Text rotated 90° gets used posters (which you can't rotate) too. I've even seen it done in America.

JdeBP 7y ago

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~sq6s-osm/tategaki.html http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~sq6s-osm/tategaki.html has numbers as an exception, too.