Template talk:Nihongo

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Template:Nihongo is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template.

Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases.
Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.
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[edit] change ?

Tokyo (東京都 Tōkyō-to(help)) That's what i want to do with the template, because the ? is just too small. The discussion at top is too old for me to revive, so I'm proposing this. ~Crazytales~patent nonsense! 20:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Or "info." The current tiny thingy that appears is just silly looking. Exploding Boy 15:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if User:Nihonjoe's recent tweak sits a bit uncomfortably on the page ... maybe
  • (cur) (last) 15:59, 22 January 2008 User:Nihonjoe (Talk | contribs) m (899 bytes) (change ? to Help)
No question that his change does resolve any lingering questions about the utility of the template's subtle superscript question mark ? .... It's an improvement, yes -- but, in my view, the alternative feels a little bit intrusive, distracting:
To better appreciate my point, please scan Naidaijin to see the cacophony effect of massed help -- or even more dramatic, glance over the serial effect in Daijō-kan.
I wonder if it's possible to have two variations of the nihongo template in the same article
  • one template which uses the help for the first use of the template on a page ...?
  • another template which presents that older ? ...?
Maybe its best to leave Nihonjoe's edit untouched for a few weeks while he and we garner further feedback from others? If necessary, I would have no problem removing the nihongo template from the Daijō-kan lists. Sure -- yeah, that's what I can do later today or tomorrow. And I'll volunteer to make similar edits in other articles where the multiple instances of help might appear awkward. Off-hand, can you think of any articles which might be improved by this kind of brisk editing? --Ooperhoofd (talk) 17:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, the main problem with the question mark is not its size but the semantic meaning. For articles that are Title + kanji, the question mark coming after the kanji gives the impression the author wasn't 100% sure of the correct kanji (thereby making Wikipedia seem less credible). For articles that are Title + kanji + romaji reading, the question mark coming after the reading gives the impression the author wasn't sure if that was the correct romaji transliteration or not. If you're going use a single symbol in this template, it really should be something else, a word would work as well...though the arguments of "help" being too intrusive are valid. That's my two yen on this matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manmaru (talk • contribs) 01:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plenk

This templete is broken. Example:

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (, Gojira tai Mekagojira?)

Note the part after the first parenthesis.

Created from {{nihongo|'''''Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla'''''||Gojira tai Mekagojira}}

Thats because the first two parameters are required. Handling Kanji was the specific reason the template was created. Perhaps it should be better documented. --TheFarix (Talk) 02:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Bug with equals signs

When you include an equal sign in the English part, it screws around, dropping the english, and seemingly shifting the other parts around.

"{{nihongo|2x2 = Shinobuden|ニニンがシノブ伝| Ninin ga Shinobuden}}" -> "ニニンがシノブ伝 ( Ninin ga Shinobuden?)"

- Omnisentry 14:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The case here isn't a bug with the template but with how MediaWiki works. It thinks that 2x2 is a parameter with a value of "Shinobuden". But since there is no such parameter in the template, it gets ignored. To work around this, surround the argument with <nowiki></nowiki>, such as:
{{nihongo|<nowiki>2x2 = Shinobuden</nowiki>|ニニンがシノブ伝| Ninin ga Shinobuden}}
That will give you the intended results --Farix (Talk) 15:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
A-ha, thank you very much for the workaround info. - Omnisentry 01:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Another workaround would be to type &#61; instead of =. Wikipeditor 05:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Display of this template.

Why this template does not display like {{CJKV}}? OK, how about this:

{{nihongo|'''abcde'''|あいうえお|aiueo}} → abcde (Japanese: あいうえお; rōmaji: aiueo?)

--JSH-alive talk to mesee my worksmail to me 07:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Because that is too long. It's silly, actually. Ashibaka (tock) 00:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
That way is much better than how it currently is. Some people would not know that it is Japanese. All other articles specify languages, so I don't see why Japanese should be the exception. – Zntrip 02:26, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that’s what the superscript question mark is for. You have a good point, though. But some uses of it are long enough even without “… Japanese: … Romaji: … English translation: …” (the last of which is often different from the English version). —Frungi 02:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe a template like that proposed here for pages where it may be unclear that the text is Japanese, and a simpler template (like this template is now... maybe without the ?) in pages whose subject is Japan-related or their predominant non-English language is Japanese? (Personally, I'm a proponent of dropping the ? in Nihongo and putting Help:Japanese in pages with lots of Japanese text) mitcho/芳貴 19:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two more interwiki links

{{editprotected}} Two interwiki links to be added: eo:Ŝablono:Nihongo and es:Plantilla:Nihongo. —TangentCube, Dialogues 16:40, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. I also switched the documentation to use the /doc subpage pattern, so future interwikis can be added by anyone. Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My problem with this template

Every other name-in-other-language template I've seen tells you what language it is. I think this template would be a lot more useful and less confusing if it was like the Chinese name one, pointing out that this is the name in English, this is the name in Kanji letters, etc. As it is, if you don't know the first thing about Japanese names, it makes no sense. Awartha 06:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another field

I think there should be another optional field for Katakana, in the end it should look like:
Hueco Mundo (Japanese:虚圏; katakana: ウェコムンド Weko Mundo?)
-- Ynhockey (Talk) 12:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there should be an optional field for kana, but I think it would look better like:
Hueco Mundo (虚圏（ウェコムンド） Weko Mundo?)
That would take up less room, be more readable, and be like it would be written in Japan (see ja:BLEACH#虚圏（ウェコムンド）). --Eruhildo (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I usually put Hueco Mundo (虚圏 or ウェコムンド Weko Mundo?) as I think it flows better and shows both ways the name may be written in japanese. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
However, notice that it messes up the font used for "or" as it is expecting a Japanese font. The effect is much more noticeable with longer words. Bendono (talk) 02:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The font for "or" looks fine to me. Doesn't look any different than anything else I've seen. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
It's immediately noticeable to me. It may depend a little on your installed fonts, but I've noticed it numerous times on multiple systems. Try something a little longer:
  • Japan (日本 or a few other historical names for Japan such as 大和 nihon etc.?)
This is a very forced example, but hopefully a little more clear. Notice a different font and style for "or a few other historical names for Japan such as". Also, I purposely duplicated the word Japan for easy comparison.
The reason for this behavior is because the second field is a text span with an xml:lang setting of ja, which is appropriate for Japanese text, but forces Latin script to be rendered in a Japanese font as well. That is why I will usually break cases like this into multiple instances of {{Nihongo}} or {{Nihongo2}} when appropriate. Bendono (talk) 02:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Maybe it's just a PC issue. I can't see any difference at all on my Mac (OS X 10.5). OS X handles Japanese (and fonts in general) much better than any other *nix OS or any variety of Windows. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
One computer I used displayed the latin characters fine, but the computer I'm using now doesn't. Also, I don't think kana should be listed as an alternative writing as, for some words, the kana is always written over kanji and not by itself. I think Hueco Mundo is like that. Also words like chimera (死美獣（キメラ） kimera?, lit. "deadly beautiful beast") would be useful to provide kana for as they loose meaning without it. Then there's names like Hazuki (葉月（はづき） Hazuki?) which could use kana to clarify pronunciation. --Eruhildo (talk) 22:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Code

What's the code for Template:Nihongo and how can I access a copy of the source? I'm trying to replicate the template on another media wiki but I can't seem to find the source code. Terek (talk) 10:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Hit the "view source" tab when viewing the template page. --Eruhildo (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "?" to "Help"

In my opinion, changing "?" to "Help" in this template makes it look bulky. I would like to request it be changed back. -- RattleMan 18:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I liked the "?" much better. Plus it was small and out of the way - "Help" just stands out too much. Please change it back to how it was. --Eruhildo (talk) 22:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
As do I. If the template only occurs once on a page, it is bearable. However, for pages where it occurs numerous times, it is extremely "bulky". So much so that I may consider not using it anymore on certain pages. Bendono (talk) 23:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, on some pages that are lists of anime characters it's just atrocious. --Eruhildo (talk) 00:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, this was just a test to see what it would look like and see what people thought. I like the "Help" better, especially if we get rid of {{Contains Japanese text}} (see discussion here) as it's more obvious what it is. If we can put all comments there instead of here, it will get a wider audience and be discussed in the proper place. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, including myself, that's 4 against 1, Joe. I'm going to go ahead and revert it until there's more discussion on the matter.--SeizureDog (talk) 09:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Or not. Forgot it was completely protected :/ Change it back please, Joe.--SeizureDog (talk) 09:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It's horrible, even when there's just one name. You get the name, then you get the "Help" squawk. Ugh. I'm about to revert. If there's really some widespread desire for "Help", let's see it expressed here persuasively. -- Hoary (talk) 10:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey wait, I'm the one (not Joe) who suggested writing "help." I'm grateful to Joe for following through on it. And for background on why I suggested it, and what I've suggested since, take a look at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Nihongo template. I agree it's overbearing in articles where it appears repeatedly. My proposal is to look for a way to remove even the question mark from the second and subsequent uses of the template. And if nobody likes it, oh well, it won't be the first of my suggestions to get nixed. Fg2 (talk) 11:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Please post all comments over here. We need to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Symbol

I like how the new symbol looks, but there's a problem somewhere with the coding, I think. In addition to creating a help link on the symbol, it also creates a link on the character directly beneath it. Anyway to fix that? (I'm using Internet Explorer.) Douggers (talk) 01:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

You're right. It's visually more apparent in IE7, but the same thing happens in Firefox 2 (and 3 Beta). Bendono (talk) 01:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I can see it, too. It may be an issue with the template used to link the image. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry to say it, but I don't really care for the new symbol, it's bulky, it stands out too much, and it doesn't fit inside the parenthesis created by the template. Many wikipedia pages are now dotted with little blue squares with 'i's inside of them, and it really forces the eye to them.
I'm thinking that (though I don't know if it can be implemented with templates) it might be alright if the icon only appears in the first instance of the template being used in a page, the same way that an article may be cross-linked the first time a certain word or name is used, but not in each subsequent use. WtW-Suzaku (talk) 03:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I was always under the impression that you only had to use the coding once. First, you start talking about Japan (日本 Nihon?), but then you can just talk about Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō) later in the article without actually using the template. It's probably easiest way to avoid the infobox/question mark/whatever from appearing numerous time. Douggers (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
The {{Nihongo}} template should be used in every instance (with only a few exceptions). I think Fg2's idea of putting it inside a switch would be a good idea. If you wanted the image to appear, you would add something like "info=yes" at the end of the template. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:26, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Why?
Why does every use of kanji need a link to the same one Help:Japanese page?
If the purpose is to trigger <span class="t_nihongo_kanji" lang="ja" xml:lang="ja"> then simply use this "nihongo" thing the first time and subsequently use "nihongo3".
For more, see this. -- Hoary (talk) 01:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
To answer WtW-Suzaku's question: I came up with some code for a possible solution and posted it on the MOS-JAPAN talk page. --Eruhildo (talk) 23:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
What on earth is with the new symbol? On one hand, it's rather bulky, and on the other it can be hard to tell what the symbol is at high resolutions, and people who use larger font size don't see it any larger. -Aknorals (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)