h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Japan - A12590462
Author: Fruitylicious Opti- go green fingers go - U231227

I think this entry goes here but then again things don't entirely tally up so who knows. I think someone needs to look at the drop down menu and supposedly corresponding submit for review page and clear things up.

What are you saying, Opti?

How about adding something about Geisha? When I think of Japan, that's what comes to mind first. Not much about them, it'd take a whole entry, but you should at least mention them.

Ah, I see now. I'll put in a correction request at Feedback / Editorial.

Read through the entry one sentence at a time, Opti, stopping after each full stop. See does each sentence stand on its own. If not, you've split a sentence into two where you shouldn't have done.

I think it is worth noting that while there are many islands in Japan, almost all the country is in the four big islands. Find out exactly how much of the country is in the four big islands.

Yes Geisha may well be worth mentioning so I've put a little in. But I've asked on Challenge H2G2 whether anyone wants to take on the task of writing an entry on it.

I've run this through grammatical on the computer and the content seems fine. I realise that in doing this though it may not pick up everything, so I will do as you say.

For me the flow is the most important thing that needs sorting out first.

I agree. The content is the first thing. Then you have to sort the language out. Then it will be ready for Peer Review.

Still trying to shuffle content around. Where do I put stuff on geisha? music and Ukiyo-e prints. Do I put in stuff about climbing mount Fuji or leave that for someone else? and what you have said about reading the lines seperately makes sense but its a mammoth task.

It's not a mammoth task. You should certainly read through your own entry at least once before submitting it to Peer Review - you are expecting everyone else to read through it!

I think I'm going to have to print it off and keep coming back to it paragraph by paragraph. Slowly in my own time until its ready for Peer Review.

I don't know much about Japan, but I got the impression that normal Japanese people wear the same clothes as us westerners, not kimonos and sandals. Is this about Japan as it is now or as it was 100 years ago?

I'll soon sort that out - read up to the clothing part so far.

This is a very good entry, Opti. It has plenty of interesting content, seems to cover most of what I'd expect in an entry about the country, and reads reasonably well. It does need some work on tidying, but not a lot.



One major section that appears to be missing is a History section. Even a paragraph or two summarising Japan's history would be worth having. Another section missing is Religion. I believe that traditional Japanese religion is Shinto. Do they still practise it?

Some details:

The introduction is everything from the start of the entry to the first header. This should be general information, giving a summary, so I think the comment about people climbing Mt Fuji is out of place. You can leave that until the special section on climbing the mountain.

"China has had a huge influence on Japan’s language and this can be seen reflected in the characters (kanji) used to write Japanese." -- I think that gives the wrong impression. I'd say:

"Although the Japanese language is unrelated to Chinese (or any other language, for that matter), the Japanese writing system is based on the Chinese one. This uses complex symbols (kanji</I&gt to represent words."

The subtitle "Literature" is at the start of a section which deals with literature, music and other arts. The subheader should be changed to a header:"The Arts".


When you've got all the major sections sorted out, we can start worrying about the individual sentences.

G

I wouldn't say that the Japanese writing system is based on the Chinese one... Japan has two alphabets - hiragana for Japanese words, and katakana for words borrowed from other languages. In these alphabets each symbol represents a syllable rather than a letter, and there are around 50 characters in each alphabet. In addition to this, they use Chinese characters for some words, called kanji (if you know about 2000 of them you should be able to understand most written Japanese).

No, Cyzaki, that is not an accurate description of the Japanese writing system. The writing uses mainly Kanji (Chinese symbols), with the hiragana to add grammatical features of the Japanese language such as word endings, tenses etc.

(Katakana are always described as a separate system to hiragana, but are really just the same symbols in a simplified font.)

I wouldn't say that - seeing as every word can be written (and understoon) in hiragana, but not in kanji, I would say kanji is mostly optional (in fact, some Japanese would write a word in hiragana, rather than risk getting the nuances of the kanji wrong).

Every word could be written in hiragana and there would be no need for kanji at all, but that is not what the Japanese do. If you look at printed Japanese, you will see that about half the symbols are kanji. The bones of the sentence are written in kanji and then hiragana is used to add all the extra stuff.

Religion and History:

I didn't feel it necessary to go into the history of Japan as it has been covered in an entry linked to one of my first paragraphs.

Religion there is very little to write on it too.

But if you really do feel it necessary to have a couple of paragraphs on these then I will put something in.

does the language part need rewording?

for religion I have already put in:

Japanese buildings including Bath Houses, Castles, Traditional Houses and places of worship 5 (such as Buddhist Temples, Shinto shrines).

5 Japan has a population of 122 264 000 who mainly believe in Buddhism and Shinto. But some Japanese celebrate Soka Gakkai and Christianity.