TextFugu » Topic: How Can You Possibly Read This?

How Can You Possibly Read This?

Harris Mason — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:41:52 +0000

I just have to put this out there, how do Japanese people read such tiny Kanji online?

Sometimes I can hardly see it let alone recognize it. Maybe my eyesight is bad. I can read katakana and hiragana online easily. But sometimes I see kanji too small to be assumed it can be read by anyone.

Maybe they just increase the zoom on their computers like I do. Just wanted to point out this observation to others.

-メイソン　ハリス
(first time forum user, long-time forum reader)

Reply To: How Can You Possibly Read This?

thisiskyle — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:00:23 +0000

I zoom in too. Sometimes I’ll copy a section of text into a word processor and blow it up so I can see better. As for Japanese people, they can get it from general shape and context. If you think tiny font online is bad, you should see some of the handwriting scrawled on sings and message boards. I’ve been told that, far more so than the actual shapes of the elements, the proportion of the sizes and locations of radicals is important to recognizing and distinguishing between kanji.

Reply To: How Can You Possibly Read This?

Sheepy — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:25:29 +0000

There are a few ways. For instance in English, we’re lucky because we have easy shape recognition, but since Kanji are all roughly a square-ish shape then its harder.

To a degree they use shape recognition and also context. Beyond that, sometimes they have trouble reading kanji too. For yourself I also recommend zooming in.