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Japanese Says More With Less
Published 6 days, 9 hours ago
Description
Until around 2017, Twitter (now X) had a character limit of 140 characters. According to the info I've found, that number wasn't just pulled out of a hat; it was chosen because in the past you could tweet from your mobile phone, but there was an SMS limit of 160 characters.
They allowed up to 20 characters headroom for the username and ended up with 140.
In around 2017, the character limit was doubled to 280. People tweeting in Japanese and other Asian languages didn't really feel restricted with the 140 limit, but people tweeting in English or other Western languages sometimes struggled.
Let's take a closer look and use this as an opportunity to see how different Japanese and English are in terms of how much space they occupy.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ohazassu-podcast--5905520/support.
They allowed up to 20 characters headroom for the username and ended up with 140.
In around 2017, the character limit was doubled to 280. People tweeting in Japanese and other Asian languages didn't really feel restricted with the 140 limit, but people tweeting in English or other Western languages sometimes struggled.
Let's take a closer look and use this as an opportunity to see how different Japanese and English are in terms of how much space they occupy.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ohazassu-podcast--5905520/support.