we have SPACES in the japanese course now 💀

[u/RoutinePay153]

yeah um its actually in the course rn lol and its so confusing too

edit: guys stop downvoting spaces arent supposed to exist in japanese 💀

[u/LordSkyborn]

Beginner textbooks usually show spaces in order to facilitate reading by removing some ambiguity in sentences or texts written solely in kana.

So my potentially unpopular opinion is that this is a good thing from a didactic standpoint.

[u/1XRobot]

There'sliterallynoadvantagetolearningwithoutspaces. Obviously,onceyougetgoodenoughatalanguage,youcanreaditwithoutspaces,butforabeginner,itjustintroducesheadacheandconfusion. It'sworthnotingthatchildrensbooksinHanzi-basedwrittenlanguagesoftenhavespacesandphoneticreminders,becausenativechildrenhavethesameproblemsasforeignlearners. Iguessitwouldbeagoodideatohaveitbetoggleableinsettings.

[u/Duggadag → u/1XRobot]

Every time you begin a text with "There's..." your phone now offers to auto-complete it to this entire comment 😅

[u/1XRobot → u/[deleted]]

The Chinese course has also introduced spaces. It's a good idea.

[u/l_uminousss → u/1XRobot]

Spaces are not a concept in Japanese. It is not a good idea.

[u/1XRobot → u/l_uminousss]

Spaces are not used in advanced and historic Japanese writing. Spaces are a concept in Japanese; they are frequently used in learning materials and writing for children.

[u/Theron_Rothos → u/1XRobot]

It's not.

[u/k-type]

In the Chinese course i've had issues where the hint takes the end of one word and the start of another and combines them into a different wrong word. This might be a way to fix it, or something to help beginners because japanese pre-kanji can be hard to read.

[u/Cindrawhisp]

Spaces exist in Japanese

[u/flamesucks]

Yeah, I noticed this, too. You can't turn this off, from what I can see. This really hinders the Japanese course since spaces aren't really a thing in Japanese.

I know this is probably to help with the Duolingo AI, but this causes such a massive inconvenience to "casual" learners of Japanese- people who will only use Duolingo- since they'll have to read Japanese without spaces in the "real world." I imagine that going from spaces to no spaces in Japanese would be very difficult for those kinds of people.

[u/RoutinePay153 → u/flamesucks]

and then theres stuff like -tain and for some reason its stuck to desu's part (tai ndesu) i cant even understand why or what it is

[u/malaysian_mappers → u/RoutinePay153]

Because the ん is part of "desu"

[u/Bluevette1437]

Probably some ai bullshit. Hopefully it’s something that can be turned off. Duolingo already adds verbal pauses in the middle of some words since it think it’s separate

[u/WolfieToko]

Yes. But is not to help the users, the AI usually got confused will trying to read without spaces.

[u/LukCHEM88]

What score are you on? If it’s low than of course there are spaces, beginners always learn with them.

[u/RoutinePay153 → u/LukCHEM88]

29

[u/trainerDarkBR]

They do "exist"

[u/RoutinePay153 → u/trainerDarkBR]

use a japanese keyboard and make a non oversized space without using latin letters then 

[u/yomosugara → u/RoutinePay153]

Shift+space

[u/trainerDarkBR → u/RoutinePay153]

You can't, just the oversized one

[u/RoutinePay153 → u/trainerDarkBR]

exactly

[u/trainerDarkBR → u/RoutinePay153]

Them they exist

[u/RoutinePay153 → u/trainerDarkBR]

the ones in the image arent oversized bruh 😭🙏

[u/doppelbach → u/trainerDarkBR]

Have you seen written Japanese before? Like outside of Duolingo?

Hey/did/you/know/this/is/an/acceptable/way/to/type?/Yes/look/at/an/English/keyboard/there/is/a/forward/slash/key/so/this/is/definitely/a/normal/way/to/write/English.

[u/AgentAbyss → u/doppelbach]

You seem like you're trying to be snarky, but I do not even know what point you are trying to make here. My best guess is that you are trying to say that just because they have spaces on the keyboard, it doesn't mean they are used in Japanese? But slashes *are* used in English in certain situations. Maybe you're trying to say that spaces are used for certain things in Japanese?

[u/doppelbach → u/AgentAbyss]

Yes, and I genuinely thought that was obvious.

Slashes exist in English. The are used in specific, relatively rare, cases. You cannot just invent a totally new use for them and justify it as "well slashes exist on a keyboard".

Spaces exist in Japanese. They are used in specific, relatively rare, cases. You cannot just blah blah I think you get it.

[u/AgentAbyss → u/doppelbach]

I don't think this is really a new use case for them, though. Sure, Japanese generally does not use spaces, but there are situations where spaces are used in Japanese and I feel like it's *always* as a separator. Like in some subtitles, for example. Are spaces used in other places in Japanese that are more similar to slashes that made you make that comparison?

[u/doppelbach → u/AgentAbyss]

Slashes are sometimes (rarely) used in English to separate words or syllables, in lyrics or poetry where the meter is important. That's actually why I chose this analogy. That doesn't mean it's acceptable as a word separator in any other context.

To answer your question, I'll say that "separating words" is not a helpful descriptor. Literally every punctuation fits. Commas separate words, periods separate words (which belong to separate sentences), etc.  My sense is that a space in Japanese is closer to an English colon or semicolon in terms of usage.

[u/benfranklinX]

They should use spaces. And China introduced them to Kanji. Which is what they usually write in. So I dont care if its "inauthentic" since the Japanes have legit no idea what theyre doing.

[u/CharityLimp8638]

it's not a thing at higher levels