Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?:<p>&quot;There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji:<p>淳子 (Junko)
淳子 (Atsuko)
淳子 (Kiyoko)
淳子 (Akiko)&quot;<p>I&#x27;m not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond date formats), even less so written, but these seem like wildly different pronunciations for some spelled the same.<p>I know English has its own large set of warts with pronunciations and spellings (even disregarding US vs every other English speaking nation), but this seems overly odd.<p>How do you get further context on how to pronounce a proper name like this?  The post mentions context, but obviously in the above example, lacking the &quot;abc&quot; spelling (as the post terms it), what context do you have to know the proper pronunciation?