Template talk:Nihongo/Archive 3

Review of test cases
Above is some discussion and initial implementation for cleaning up this template. There are also a number of testcases. Looking over the various test cases, both existing and experimental implementations seem to have some advantages and problems. These are my observations. Problems with existing implementation:
 * Test 2: extra space between 日本 and closing ); fixed in sandbox
 * Test 12: extra space between 日本 and closing ); fixed in sandbox
 * Test 14: extra space between 日本 and closing ); fixed in sandbox
 * Test 18: extra space between 日本 and ,; fixed in sandbox

Problems with sandbox implementation:
 * Test 2: missing space between Japan and opening (
 * Test 3: missing space between Japan and opening (
 * Test 4: missing space between Japan and opening (; missing space between 日本 and Nippon
 * Test 5: missing space between Japan and opening (; missing space between 日本 and Nippon
 * Test 6: missing space between Japan and opening (; missing space between 日本 and Nippon
 * Test 7: missing space between Japan and opening (
 * Test 8: missing space between Japan and opening (
 * Test 9: missing space between Japan and opening (
 * Test 14: missing space between 日本 and opening (
 * Test 15: missing space between 日本 and opening (
 * Test 16: missing space between 日本 and opening (
 * Test 17: missing space between 日本 and opening (
 * Test 21: missing space between should and be
 * Test 22: missing space between English and opening (

If would be nice to fix the various problems and merge to the two separate implementations into one. Bendono (talk) 04:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe several fixes have been made to the main template since the big update, and the sandbox hasn't been synched with any of them. Not sure about the first four issues you've listed, though. 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 19:38, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Should be fixed now. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 22:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Basic example of usage is confusing...
Hi everyone,

would it be possible to change the example of usage from a name to a regular noun?

Given that the "English" box contains romanised Japanese, and the romanised Japanese box also contains romanised Japanese (except with the order shuffled around to match traditional Japanese names), it would not appear to be a good representation of the most common usage of this template.

Would I be right in thinking that the correct usage is: English (英語) ? In which case, would that not be a much clearer example?

We can list names as a secondary example, no?

Just a thought, --James Chenery (talk) 13:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Reducing the size of the template
editprotected Replace:

With:

The reason for this change is due to post-expand include size limits encounter on some manga chapter lists, such as List of Initial D chapters, do to the repeated transclutions of this template. While the lists now use a much simplified version of this template, the change makes this template more efficient and reduces an article's overall post-expand include size. I would also recommend dropping some of the other spans, such as,  , and   entirely from the template to reduce the overall size. Only three of the six spans are really necessary. --Farix (Talk) 19:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm curious why we even need to have the classes specifying kanji as the contents being in UTF-8 takes care of that. I'll be happy to make the changes, but I'd like an answer to this question first. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Template talk:Nihongo/Archive 1. This isn't the first time I've proposed removing the spans and classes. But unlike last time, there are clear technical reasons behind the proposal. --Farix (Talk) 20:34, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, but I'm not asking about that. I'm asking why we even need the classes in there. I don't see a useful purpose for them, and think they should be removed altogether. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's worry about the first change to deal with the problems relating to post-expand include size. --Farix (Talk) 20:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Overall, only three editors have styled t_nihongo_kanji in any form, two for t_nihongo_romaji, and 6 for t_nihongo_comma.. t_nihongo_help is a different beast entirely and the class is used there to settle arguments over the question mark link. Buy you can count it's uses here. --Farix (Talk) 21:11, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like only 15 people are actually using t_nihongo_kanji, but I left it anyway. I've made the changes requested, plus a couple more to reduce the footprint by removing unnecessary code. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I could only find 3. Still, why does anyone need to style they kanji? I can also only find two accounts using t_nihongo_icon, which an be replaced with t_nihongo_help. --Farix (Talk) 12:36, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Use of the template
I'm asking here because I can't see anything in the MOS, but surely in an article about a Japanese topic the template only needs to be used the first time a Japanese term appears (and not every time there's a new Japanese term introduced)? I ask because someone has just templated every single appearance of a Japanese term in an article containing quite a few of them. Exploding Boy (talk) 20:10, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That depends. If kanji is being provided with a transliterated form, then yes, should be used. However, it should only be used on the first instance of that word; after that, only the romaji form of the word should be used in the article unless the kanji form *needs* to be mentioned (e.g. it's being discussed by the prose or something). If there's no kanji provided, there's little reason to use the template. Whether or not to provide kanji is an editorial decision that must be made on a case-by-case basis, but there might be some MOS guidance, possibly in WP:MOS-JA. 「 ダイノ ガイ  千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 22:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Formatting change: prevent italics from styling kanji
editprotected Please change  to  ; currently, if an instance of this template is placed inside italics, Japanese script will also be italicized, which is undesirable (see  above and WP:ITALICS). For example: a (あ). 67.175.50.253 (talk) 04:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:11, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, I request that this edit be reversed. If there is a problem with the misuse of italic, then it should be corrected at the article. We should avoid introducing more "cruft" into the template when it can be avoided. Unlike the Wikitext for definition lists, I don't know of any other Wikitext that will introduced unwanted formatting over the template --Farix (Talk) 18:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've undone the edit. Feel free to discuss the change here. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Can it with the "cruft"-slinging, Farix. That's the ultimate in not assuming good faith. The Japanese characters should never be italicized, in part because it can make the characters more difficult to read. Japanese characters are not italicized in any magazine I've ever seen (though I've seen some fonts designed to be more "scriptlike", which is not the same thing). What are your reasons for for wanting this removed, Farix? ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's cruft in the truest sense of the word in that it is redundant, irrelevant, and unnecessary. The only reason that  is in there is because of the definition lists, which uses bolding that can't be graceful overridden outside the template. If it weren't for the definitions lists, I wouldn't have added that code into the template in the first place and affects more then just the Japanese characters. But as I already said, inappropriate use of italic should be cleanup at the article. I don't see why this has to be dealt with on the template end, especially after the issues with post-expand include size limits a couple of months ago. --Farix (Talk) 02:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And what are these "definitions lists" you keep talking about? ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Definition list begins with a semicolon followed by a term which is automatically made bold, then a colon, and then the definition or description. The colon and the definition can also be on the next line. (Help:Wikitext examples) WP:ANIME commonly use definition lists to format character lists in articles. Because of the term, or in this case the character's name, is automatically made bold, this creates some undesired formatting inside the template. Specifically everything inside the parenthesis. --Farix (Talk) 11:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The extra formatting is hardly unnecessary. Editors should not be expected to know to terminate markup before an inline template and reapply it after, especially in the middle of, say, a long paragraph that just happens to need italics.  See Template talk:Fix/Archive 1 for a similar issue.  (Also, definition list formatting does not always use bolding.  What if someone tried to get font-weight removed because the skin he uses doesn't need it?)  67.175.50.253 (talk) 12:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The post-expand include size problems we faced several months ago were caused mostly by the fact that unnecessarily transcluded another template; this issue spurred what basically amounts to a complete redesign of the code that not only drastically reduced 's footprint, but also (as I understand it) fixed several esoteric bugs in it. As a result, we now have more than enough leeway to be able to make little tweaks/fixes like this. I personally see nothing wrong with this addition. 「 ダイノ ガイ  千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 18:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Related Template:Nihongo title
Why are there huge white spaces on the inside of the parentheses on this template? Shouldn't it be identical to nihongo but with bold and italics in the first entry?— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙 ) 04:28, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Ryulong! The spaces should be rather tiny, but if that's not the case on other displays, I'll remove the spaces. In my view, the parentheses were too close to the Japanese characters without the spaces. So if the spaces you are seeing are more than half of the width of a character, this is unintended. Please let me know. Cs32en  06:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Optionally disabling the question mark
Could we add a way to optionally disable the question mark. For pages which use a lot of this template, seeing multiple uses of this question mark becomes distracting, especially when used in tables. The default should still remain to have it, but for instances when you have lists it doesn't add anything while making the page less visually appealing. 陣 内 Jinnai 01:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That's what nihongo2 is for. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:04, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there a way for readers to prevent the display of the ? Japanese text? I already know what Japanese text is and I don't need the ? on each word. --86.32.133.13 (talk) 22:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I know this is an old thread but user styles can be used to hide the question mark. At a guess (untested), you could add
 * .t_nihongo_help { display: none; }
 * to Special:MyPage/skin.css. User:GKFXtalk 10:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, could the question mark be disabled for Bing-Bot, Google-bot, etc? It just comes up as a full-size one (eg. ) - confusing. User:GKFXtalk 10:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

English vs Romaji
The documentation says to use the  parameter for the Japanese term transliterated—not translated—into English, but isn’t that what romaji is? What’s the difference between the (transliterated)  and   parameters here? —Frungi (talk) 06:10, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * "Rōmaji" is a transliteration of the kanji and kana; "English" is a translation. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:24, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * But on this template, it says the  parameter is also a transliteration, and the examples it gives all use romaji as “English”. If you’re sure it should be a translation, then can we edit the usage to say so, and change the example to something like this that actually has an English translation?
 * {| CLASS="wikitable"


 * Code ||
 * Gives||             English (英語)
 * }
 * —Frungi (talk) 18:50, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * —Frungi (talk) 18:50, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see what you mean. I've corrected the documentation to make things more clear. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The examples all still use romaji in their  parameters… —Frungi (talk) 04:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The examples are all clear enough in how to use the template. If you have a better example (or two) which can be added, feel free to post it (them) here for consideration. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:44, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I did, above: English (英語). Not the best example, but at least it has an English term in the  parameter. Or maybe “Priest of nothingness (虚無僧)” ( . I’m sure someone more familiar with Japanese than I could come up with better examples. But about the existing example using komusō in the   parameter… —Frungi (talk) 06:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Invisible comma between characters and romanji?
The comma between parameters 2 and 3 don't seem to be appearing. If the code is correct, why aren't the two separated by punctuation? --Notmyhandle (talk) 15:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have an example? ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 08:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure: English (Characters). --Notmyhandle (talk) 17:53, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Bug in this template
In the article titled Sakabe Kohan, this template causes the dates of birth and death to appear in italics. They should not be italicized. Please fix this right away. I'll check back tomorrow. If it's not fixed, I'll expunge this template from that article. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:39, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not a bug in the template. It's an error in how the template was used. I've corrected the template syntax in that article so the date appears correctly (the dates were not being fed to the correct part of the template). ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 08:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

It happened again in Koide Chōjūrō. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Please pay attention: it is not a bug. It's a template syntax error on the part of the person who used the template. If you see the incorrect usage again, fix the template syntax rather than removing content from the template and placing it outside the template. In each of these cases, all that was missing was a pipe | character. Look at the diffs for when I corrected it if you aren't sure what needs to be done. It's a minor, yet important, detail which was omitted in the incorrect usage in both cases. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 07:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Expecting a person not familiar with the template to know how to fix the syntax is a bit much, to say the least. Michael Hardy (talk) 15:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, but I showed you how to fix the exact same issue in your previous complaint. And as far as this template's syntax, it's one of the least complicated templates we have. The documentation explains it fairly well. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 17:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

display problems with cell templates
Posting here because this discussion is more centralizied. I tried adding beta to at User:Jinnai/VN that used the nihongo template and it would not change the color of the cell. I'm not sure what is up here as it works with other templates fine. 陣 内 Jinnai 20:34, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Making the template clearer and more accessible
editprotected As per the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) (see at "Comma is good."), it has been determined that the following line

#if: | , &#32; should be replaced with #if: | ,&#32;

and the following line #if: |? be replaced with  #if: |Help

This makes the invisible comma visible and replaces the confusing "?" into a "Help" link. Thanks! Megata Sanshiro (talk) 12:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I would actually oppose this change. This will look bad and break the flow of the text when there is highly dense calls to the template. And as a preference, I would rather see the "invisible coma" removed instead of made viable. —Farix (t &#124; c) 12:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Then please discuss on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) (in a new section if necessary), as this has been debated extensively for months and PrimeBlue and others have taken care to alert dozens of editors and wikiprojects to make sure it had the input of as many people as possible. The main argument for the comma was that basic grammar rules trump arguments like "This will look bad" or "I don't like it", and the main argument for the "?" -> "Help" was WP:ACCESS and WP:LINK. Thanks. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 13:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I still oppose both changes. Replacing "?" with "Help" will look very bad on highly dense usage of the template, such as list of works on biographies, chapter lists, under-developed character lists, and glossaries. The "?" was chose because it didn't look as bad as full text. The invisible coma, on the other hand, looks entirely out of place, but editors who prefer the comma can turn it on by customizing their personal style sheet. Beside, the notice posted to various wikiprojects was about including romantizations of English titles such as on Bleach, which I am indifferent about, and is not related to the template. —Farix (t &#124; c) 13:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not going to make the change given the strong objections here. Apply later when there is consensus both here and at the WikiProject.--Commander Keane (talk) 04:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I somewhat share Farix concerns. Accessibility is about making it easier to navigate and read pages ... for all users. If a change affects readability for a large group of users (95%), then perhaps we should think 4 times before actually doing it. Has anyone considered the usage of a small image + alt text ? Have we considered adapting the ruby server for mobile devices to "transform" such a link to an alternate presentation ? These are both simple to realize options and I think we should look into it. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Template:Nihongo/testcases for an example of how to do this with an image. Would clearly require a more suitable image, but that is something that can be fixed. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 14:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * We had a very extensive discussion about this, and tried all kinds of different images to see if one of them would work better. However, none of them seemed to be as easily read as just using the question mark. The point of the question mark is to let people know they can get help, but also to not be obtrusive or intrusive. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 17:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think its very lack of intrusiveness is what is making people want to include Contains Japanese text in more articles. The "?" isn't universal enough to automatically know ?=click to get help. 陣 内 Jinnai 21:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you speak or read English (which people looking at the English Wikipedia are going to be doing to some degree), then one of the very first things you learn is that the question mark is used when you have a question or to find an answer to a question (in the case of software and websites). Even the Japanese use the question mark to indicate help in an overwhelming majority of software products. It's far more universal than you are trying to imply here. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 22:44, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally, when I first saw the question mark on this template, its only effect was confusion. It doesn’t clearly indicate a “help” question mark, as the proposed image would. It’s just a punctuation mark. Is the Japanese term a question? It doesn’t fit. —Frungi (talk) 01:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't know what to tell you. You are not in the majority when it comes to that. Here are the examples given in the previous discussion, plus a few more which have been created since that last discussion with a standard use of nihongo and HELP at the beginning for comparison:
 * Motojirō Kajii (梶井 基次郎)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō HELP, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Help, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Info Sign.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Information icon.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Info Simple.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Messagebox info.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Info.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Hong Kong film rating cat1.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Info icon.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Info icon 002.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Gtk-dialog-info.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Circle-information.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Ambox emblem question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Help-browser.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Blue question mark.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Circle-question-blue.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Circle-question-red.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Circle-question-yellow.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Circle-question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Commons-emblem-query.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Commons-emblem-question blue.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Commons-emblem-question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Gtk-dialog-question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Icon apps query.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Purple question mark.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Question dropshade.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Select.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Red question mark.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Stop question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Question book-5.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Blueinterrogationpointcircle1.png, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Ambox ?.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Ambox question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Ambox blue question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō AIGA information.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō AtlantisGlyphUnknown.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Circle question mark.png, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Blank hazard clean.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Blue-question-mark.jpg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Crystal Clear app help index.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Dario.jpg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō HILLBLU puntointerrogativo.png, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō HILLDEP puntointerrogativo.png, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō HILLGIALLO puntointerrogativo.png, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō HILLGRY puntointerrogativo.png, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Inverted question mark alternate.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Orange question mark.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Nuvola actions help green.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Nuvola actions help.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Pictogram voting question.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Pictograms-nps-Information.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Pp interrogation.gif, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Question mark alternate.svg, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō Question mark blue.png, 1901–1932)
 * Motojirō Kajii' (梶井 基次郎 Kajii Motojirō StargateGlyphUnknown.png, 1901–1932)


 * Feel free to add more if you find icons you think would work. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 03:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

What you could actually do is make it look like the majority of other language templates: That is, to add "Japanese:" before the Japanese. I've always had the impression that the nihongo template is more for people who would immediately identify the characters as Japanese, which kind of derogates its utility a little. Prime Blue (talk) 14:52, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That will only exacerbate the complaints from WP:VG when it comes to length of the template. My preference from the above (if we were to change things) would be to use Help as it would be immediately recognizable for what it is. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 15:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I remember, there were no complaints about the length of the template, though. Prime Blue (talk) 16:42, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue with WP:VG is about whether to include the romaji version of English lone-words, which I think is a silly issue to begin with. But it's not something that should be solved by changing the template. —Farix (t &#124; c) 17:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That would work if the template was used only for the lead sentence. However, the template is used fare more frequently and having repeated "Japanese:" in chapter lists, character lists, etc. will disrupt the flow and make articles more difficult to read. List of Naruto chapters (Part I) is an example of one case, Glossary of anime and manga is another. —Farix (t &#124; c) 17:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So add a parameter along the lines of  that enables links to both Japanese language and Hepburn romanization. Or, better yet, modify nihongo title so there's an option for italics and just add these links there and rewrite the MOS such that nihongo title be used in the lead of all articles on Japanese subjects.— Ryūlóng  ( 竜龙 ) 19:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In reply to TheFarix’s complaint, along the lines of Ryulong’s suggestion, why not have the help link(s) (whatever form it/they may take) only in the first use of the template in a given article or section? Maybe with something like . If there were display problems with the Japanese text, the reader would likely notice them in the first instance of the template (where the help link is). For this idea to work, though, the first use in each article would probably have to be modified. —Frungi (talk) 03:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

We have to be consistent about WP:ACCESS. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 05:08, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Romaji as parameter
Since it doesn’t say in the template documentation or the linked MOS page, I’m asking here so that it may be added: How is the template to be used if there is no English term to use? For example, in loanwords: karaoke (カラオケ), or when describing the Japanese name for something (e.g. “…known in Japan as…”). Should the romaji be included in two parameters (which seems redundant to me, and wrong to call it “ ”), or should the first parameter be left blank (e.g. karaoke (カラオケ))? —Frungi (talk) 05:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry for any confusion. The template documentation (as well as extensive usage) covers this. If the English word is the same as the Japanese word (sushi, karaoke, etc.), then you would do it like this:  karaoke (カラオケ). This would produce this: karaoke (カラオケ). ··· 日本穣 ? ·  投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 16:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, so for loanwords, you just leave off the . What about the other case I mentioned, where it doesn’t enter English at all? For example (I don’t really have a decent example, so), the particle wa (は). Should it be written as wa (は) wa (は), with the   parameter unused?—Frungi (talk) 01:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That works, or the preferred way is to use nihongo3 like this: wa (は) gets you wa (は). ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 02:33, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Requested edit
edit protected Please add Please insert so that articles (e.g. Twenty-two shrines) which transclude this template will be included in this category. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This was done. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:33, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested edit: Help pointer in wrong field

 * I believe the help pointer (for installing JP character sets) is appearing in the wrong field, for romaji, rather than in the kana field where the JP characters are intended to appear. This occurs when the English field is provided, e.g. Japanese language (日本語) but not otherwise: nihongo (日本語) I don't know if this was by design for some reason, but seems incorrect, since the romaji by definition should never use kana. Ham Pastrami (talk) 06:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * See discussion in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

A suggested change to template Nihongo
It's been a few months since the discussion. What is the status of implementing the option to add "Japanese:" and "Hepburn:" to the template's displayed text? (Guyinblack25 talk 15:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC))


 * It's not going to happen anytime soon. —Farix (t &#124; c) 15:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Is help needed to add it to the template? (Guyinblack25 talk 16:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC))
 * No, there is just never been any consensus supporting such a change, despite the issue being brought up multiple times. Also, there is the issue that is used multiple times in the article, adds unnecessary clutter, and the increased transclusion size may cause some pages to break. —Farix (t &#124; c) 16:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The consensus was reached in the discussion linked above. Input was gathered from members of WP:JAPAN and WP:VG, both which use the template frequently. Outside the transclusion size, the issues you brought up were addressed and solutions suggested in the discussion. (Guyinblack25 talk 17:45, 29 July 2011 (UTC))
 * Question: I have never seen a page that was broken because of a template overload. That may just mean that people have applied the necessary care to avoid this, or that I've been just lucky. But do we have some basic fact about when a template overload causes a page to break? For example, if there are some sites that use a template a few dozens of times, and only these sites are causing problems, then it appears to be appropriate to have a short template for those sites, and a longer, more flexible template for regular usage. Cs32en   Talk to me  17:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There were several manga chapter lists that use the template a few hundred times that had to be split up do the page's exceeding the transmissions sides. Besides, there was no consensus to change behavior, though it was discussed on an issues relating to whether to include romaji text in certain articles. You said that that [WP:JAPAN]] and WP:VG were notified, but apparently WP:ANIME wasn't. The latter group probably uses the template more frequently than either of the other two. —Farix (t &#124; c) 18:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your explanation. My suggestion would be to have a template (short) and a  template (flexible). I would think that issues related to bandwidth etc. would go away over time, as technology improves, but I have no practical experience with regard to this particular problem.  Cs32en   Talk to me  18:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Farix- Several projects were invited to the discussions more than once. The ones that received at least one notification are WikiProject Japan, WikiProject Anime and manga, WikiProject Hello! Project, WikiProject Pokémon, WikiProject Trains in Japan, WikiProject Square Enix, and WikiProject Tokusatsu. (Guyinblack25 talk 18:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC))
 * Just following up. A lot of time and energy was put into the mediation over the use of this template; part of which included the addition of reader context. (Guyinblack25 talk 13:43, 17 August 2011 (UTC))
 * We can add this functionality, but only if we added a new parameter such as  so we can prevent redundancies.— Ryūlóng  ( 竜龙 ) 14:10, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Following up again. I'll probably put here at the end of the week for an admin to handle the update. (Guyinblack25 talk 14:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC))
 * lead=yes seems fine. I don't mind it being off by default. However, we should then have a bot add that to all the WP:VG articles. 陣 内 Jinnai 03:01, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Please add an optional parameter to the template:. This parameter should add descriptive text with applicable links. With the parameter off:
 * English (kanji/kana rōmaji? )

With the parameter on:
 * English (Japanese: kanji/kana Hepburn: rōmaji? )

(Guyinblack25 talk 06:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC))
 * Happy to make the change, but I think it would be better if you could make the required changes to Template:Nihongo/sandbox and then request sync. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:36, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Can someone who knows coding do this otherwise the mediation terms have been violated as this was a key area of compromise. Plus there continue to be edits concerning people who don't know what the romaji is suppose to represent. ∞ 陣  内  Jinnai  19:22, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I was looking at the template today and it is a bit complicated; I'm use to parameters with defined names. Help from someone more experienced with templates that use the unnamed parameters would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, we wait for me to figure things out. :-\ (Guyinblack25 talk 21:28, 11 October 2011 (UTC))
 * I gave it a go. Here's the result:
 * Someone else might want to take a look at the change to make sure that it functions properly. (Guyinblack25 talk 13:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC))
 * ✅ I did change it to use yesno, so input such as "lead=1" works as well. Don't forget to update the documentation. Anomie⚔ 23:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Appreciate it. (Guyinblack25 talk 12:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC))
 * Someone else might want to take a look at the change to make sure that it functions properly. (Guyinblack25 talk 13:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC))
 * ✅ I did change it to use yesno, so input such as "lead=1" works as well. Don't forget to update the documentation. Anomie⚔ 23:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Appreciate it. (Guyinblack25 talk 12:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC))
 * Someone else might want to take a look at the change to make sure that it functions properly. (Guyinblack25 talk 13:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC))
 * ✅ I did change it to use yesno, so input such as "lead=1" works as well. Don't forget to update the documentation. Anomie⚔ 23:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Appreciate it. (Guyinblack25 talk 12:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC))
 * ✅ I did change it to use yesno, so input such as "lead=1" works as well. Don't forget to update the documentation. Anomie⚔ 23:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Appreciate it. (Guyinblack25 talk 12:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC))

???????????
The little question mark links to Help:Installing Japanese character sets, which is fair enough, the problem is that it always appears. Now in an article using this template repeatedly we've got this link every time. Isn't this a bit of an overkill? Isn't it enough to link there once? Can't we have a parameter to turn the link off ... or perhaps better still one to turn it on (though we might first want a bot to go through and turn the first one in each article one)? J IM ptalk·cont 05:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Please read the archives of this page as this has been discussed multiple times. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 05:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I picked through the archives & the issue wasn't mentioned but I found it here on this page. Now I've got another idea floating about in my head. We got, , , and  all doing much the same thing (with 2 oddly being what would seem to me the most basic of all). Wouldn't it be nice if we could wrap them all into one and use parameters to add extras? It would be a fair bit of work (we'd want to use a bot) but it might make usage simpler in the future (and reduce the number of confused users wandering onto this page asking for solutions to problems which don't actually exist). J IM ptalk·cont 14:23, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Feel free to take a stab at doing it (perhaps at Template:Nihongo/sandbox so we don't mess up this template until we get it right). So far, no one has wanted to take the time necessary to combine all of them in one simple to use package that is also concise in coding. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 04:17, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * As for the previous discussions, it's possible it was discussed somewhere else (perhaps at WT:MOS-JA), but it's been discussed multiple times. The discussion above is only the most recent, and it never went anywhere. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 04:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You have to remember that this template is very heavily used by some pages and any additional code may trip the post-expand include size limits and simply break. But I would be for eliminating nihongo title as all that does is add bold/italic around the English parameter, which should be done in the article anyways. nihongo foot appears to be of limited us and is simply wrapping the with —Farix (t &#124; c) 16:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It's rare for a page to need more than one link to a page that talks about Japanese script. And so it's rare for a page to need more than one instance of the Nihongo (or Nihongo3) template. For the rest, use Nihongo2 instead. Then there'll be just one little question mark. &para; Incidentally, don't OSes these days install CJK fonts by default? (Certainly when you install Debian [stable] via the regular, English-language installation procedure, you're given these fonts before you say anything about wanting anything particular in any of these languages.) Cellphones will lag behind, but perhaps it won't be long before all the helpful advice about boxes or question marks appearing will no longer be necessary. -- Hoary (talk) 07:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Usage with links
When using this template with the cite web template, the question mark is not written in superscript and the ending parenthesis is not part of the link to the external web site. Is this intended behaviour? I noticed this because I needed this on a page on Swedish Wikipedia.

Example: --Stefan2 (talk) 09:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Appropriateness of Japanese template category naming
Discussion is here. LittleBen (talk) 13:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Upgrade for the VisualEditor
The generic parameters should be replaced ie. with,  with  , and  with. The use of the generic parameters may then be marked as depreciated and TemplateData added. – Allen4names (contributions) 01:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Having given it some thought different parameter names may be used such as ' ', ' ', and ' ' instead of ' ', ' ', and ' '. If the TemplateData can be added as well I would consider it a bonus. – Allen4names (contributions) 02:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: This seems like a reasonable change; however, it will require a change in workflow from the editors used to using this template, so I think it needs to be discussed first before it is implemented. I suggest leaving about a week for comments, and then reactivating the edit protected template after that if there is a consensus to do so. You can add the TemplateData now, by the way - you can always update it to reflect changes to the template as those changes are made. I'll leave a note at WT:JAPAN letting the editors there know about this request. Best — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 11:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "Japanese" is bad, since it's all Japanese. "ja-jpan" is very bad, what does that mean? "ja-latn" is also very bad, and meaningless. There's "Kana", "Kanji", "Hepburn", "Katakana", "Hiragana". Does "English" mean it's supposed to be the translation, English-language transliteration, or the meaning of the term? -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Why do we have to change everything for the fucking visual editor?— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 15:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Try editing a transclusion of this template in the visual editor. See where the parameters are listed by number with zero context? That’s why. See also VisualEditor/TemplateData. —Frungi (talk) 06:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * @76.65.128.0/22. I would think that would be better than  . You may want to read my comments dated 6 July. @Ryulong. This is not the place to rant about VE. – Allen4names (contributions) 00:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * No, "Japanese" is much worse. Romaji is Japanese, Kana is Japanese, Kanji is Japanese. Is this supposed to be the Kana-rubic or the Kanji-term? or the Romaji-representation? As I said, it's all Japanese. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Is there a word that includes kanji and kana while excluding a romanization of the same? I take japanese in this context to mean “the text as it normally appears when written in Japanese”, and I honestly can’t think of a better concise way to say that.
 * I would change the params to, respectively: englishjapaneseromajiextraextra2. —Frungi (talk) 06:02, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Australia (オーストラリア) from: – and thousands of other Japanese words in katakana, of foreign origins (–a substantial minority of the uses of the template); not so nice including ōsutoraria (–the correct romaji, but a stupid looking, redundant piece of text for an originally English word). In fact most concisely in English what is being referred to for the majority of uses is: translation &#91;English&#93;, original &#91;Japanese script&#93;, transliteration &#91;Japanese (romanised)&#93; and extras.
 * Clarification: The above katakana example is of a word originating from English and transliterated into katakana Japanese, therefore the English parameter can be either: sometimes an originally English word or in the majority of uses a translation from Japanese by a reliable source. The Japanese script parameter can be either: in the majority of uses an originally Japanese word in its native script of kanji and kana or sometimes a transliteration into katakana from a word originally English (or from a third language eg. German, French, Hindi). The reality is much more interesting than the simple assumptions, and yet not hard to describe when known more concisely. --macropneuma 06:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * In your transliteration example, the second parameter is still “the text as it normally appears when written in Japanese,” so I’m not sure I see your point. —Frungi (talk) 06:56, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think there was some confusion. I was asking if there’s a better word than “japanese” for the parameter, one that applies only to both kanji and kana. —Frungi (talk) 07:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Quotation: "Is there a word that includes kanji and kana while excluding a romanization of the same?"
 * original —--macropneuma 07:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Which assumes that the Japanese form is the original. That doesn’t work for cases like オーストラリア. —Frungi (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * When the 80/20 rule is remembered … --macropneuma 07:22, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is a way of saying it in one word - the closest I can think of is "Japanese script". But with TemplateData, that doesn't matter so much. We could call the parameter "japanese", and then in the TemplateData we could add a description of e.g. "Japanese term in kana or kanji". Then when Visual Editor users edit the template, they can see the description text so that they have some context. It is equally possible to use such a description in TemplateData with the current numbered parameters. So editors would click on the "1" parameter, and would see the description "Japanese term in kana or kanji". The question here is whether having named parameters such as "japanese" rather than "1", in addition to the description added by the TemplateData, would be easier to use from the Visual Editor. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 22:17, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Instead of choosing names for the parameters, if TemplateData can just provide descriptions for unnamed ones, then why bother naming them? -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The TemplateDate would be in the doc page would it not? Only the template itself is protected from vandalism so that is a concern. – Allen4names (contributions) 17:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
 * To provide context. If an editor would have to click on “2” before having any idea what in the world that parameter is supposed to be, that seems horribly unintuitive, and in my opinion at least, that is Bad. Much better to be able to say at a glance, “Oh, the Japanese goes here, and the English goes there,” or, “The original goes here, and the translation goes there,” or whatever. —Frungi (talk) 03:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * We have template documentation pages for a reason. I don't see any great hardship in clicking. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:14, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Clicking, typing (or copy paste) in the template name, and clicking again all to get info that should be available in the interface now that VE (as buggy as it is) has been enabled. – Allen4names (contributions) 14:55, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Option not to link "Japanese" or "Hepburn"?
Could an option not to link "Japanese" or "Hepburn" be added to the template? Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:24, 17 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I realize this is a bit old, but I believe this is the default, now. You can turn it on (default off) by adding |lead=yes Kitty4777 (talk) 10:30, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Is there any way to find all articles that currently have that parameter set to on? I ask because it seems "safer" than simply requesting the parameter be disabled outright, and it seems extremely unhelpful, especially in the lead. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 07:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Searches are notoriously unreliable, but this one seems to find about 3000 articles where lead has some assigned value.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:51, 7 January 2020 (UTC)