Mysterious Japan; . su to n . / > a character denot-ing that the pre-ceding syllable islong to Dono or Esquire—?a Chinese character the sound of the word represented. In this way areader of newspapers gets continual instruction inthe written language and finally comes to know themost frequently used words from the ideographs,without referring to the kana interpretation. Thusthere are actually two ways of reading a Japanesepaper. A thoroughly educated man reads the ideo-graphs, while a poorly educated one reads the kana,. he bath of the proletariat consists of a large barrel with acharcoal s
Mysterious Japan; . su to n . / > a character denot-ing that the pre-ceding syllable islong to Dono or Esquire—?a Chinese character the sound of the word represented. In this way areader of newspapers gets continual instruction inthe written language and finally comes to know themost frequently used words from the ideographs,without referring to the kana interpretation. Thusthere are actually two ways of reading a Japanesepaper. A thoroughly educated man reads the ideo-graphs, while a poorly educated one reads the kana,. he bath of the proletariat consists of a large barrel with acharcoal stove attached. Frequently it stands out of doors MYSTERIOUS JAPAN 55 which gives him the sound of a word that he knowsby ear, though he does not know it by sight when itis written in the classic character. These conditions,of course, eliminate the use of our sort of typewriter,though there is an extremely complicated and slowJapanese typewriter which is used chiefly wherecarbon copies are required. Also, they render theuse of* the linotype impracticable, and make hand-typesetting an extremely complicated trade. Thedifficulty of learning the Chinese characters, more-over, makes it necessary for students to remain inschool and college several years longer than is the casewith us. There is a movement on foot to Romanizethe Japanese language, just as in this country thereis a movement to adopt the metric system; but prac-tical though such improvements would be in bothcases, the realization of them is, I fear, far distan
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookpublishergarde, bookyear1922
