From: Pieter Stouten shogi net> Date: 17 aug 2004 Subject: Re: The myth of the "kanji barrier" Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Get a Great Credit Card for You Today=20 You can find a credit card to fit your credit needs.=20=20 All types of credit cards -- 0% APRs, Rewards, & Bad Credit. http://click.topica.com/= caacvgua2i6YsbnuqMaa/411Web ------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello Shogi fans, On Tue 17 Aug 2004 at 13:50 +0900, Richard Sams parkcity ne jp> wrote: >When I met him [Naohiro Sanada of the ISPS] recently at the >Shogi Renmei, he bemoaned the decrease in the shogi population >in the west. "It's the kanji," he said, shaking his head. > First of all, overall the Shogi population in Europe is not decreasing as far as I can tell, but in some countries it has been falling (e.g., UK, Netherlands), in others it seems stable (France, Germany), others have seen rapid growth in the recent past (Sweden, Russia) and yet others (Ukriane) are experiencing a boom right now. The problem is that the populations are very small in numbers and geographical area. They depend on one or a few enthusiastic people to get and keep things going. I am sure that without e.g., Richard Verkouille in Belgium, Peter Blommers in Holland, Martin Danerud in Sweden, these countries would not have experienced a Shogi boom nor would they have sustained the population for as long as they did. Also, when organizers like George Hodges, Mike Loftus and Steve Campbell left Shogi for various reasons, Shogi collapsed in the UK. It is easy to prove that the kanji are not the reason for the decline: people all over Europe start playing Shogi and they typically play it at least for several years. If the kanji were a problem, they would have played Shogi fort a very short time only (if at all), while we do see sustained populations emerge. I do not think that kanji pose an obstacle for getting people interested either. As people have pointed out, in order to learn chess, one must learn to recognize the shape of the pieces first. When Peter Blommers taught me Shogi, he indicated how I could distinguish the pieces (the knight indeed looks like a running horse). In my first game, I mixed up the moves of silver and gold, but not for lack of the ability to recognize the different kanji (the gold with its big "hat" being more powerful than the silver with its tiny "hat"). After having played Shogi for a while, I actually had problems assessing Chess positions with the clutter of all these vertical pieces interfering with whole board perception (but then again I was never any good at Chess, anyway). When I first played Shogi, we played in a thinking sports centre, where also chess, bridge, go, draughts etc. were played. Chess players were often curious, but their motivation for not really trying out Shogi typically was that they had invested a lot of time and effort to get good at Chess and were not willing to learn another Chess variant and start at the bottom again. Rarely, did any of them indicate that learning the kanji would be a problem. Just my $0.02, Pieter Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Save up to 67% on Omaha Steaks + Get 6 FREE Burgers and a=20 FREE Cutlery Set + Cutting Board! http://click.topica.com/= caacvgpa2i6YsbnuqMaf/OmahaSteaks ------------------------------------------------------------------- --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: = shogi-l shogi net EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a2i6Ys.= bnuqMa.= c2hvZ2kt Or send an email to: shogi-unsubscribe topica com For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=3DTEXFOOTER --^----------------------------------------------------------------