Google Suggest Venn Diagrams for Chinese, Japanese, and English

I was recently introduced to the awesome Google Suggest Venn Diagram Generator by Micah. Some interesting suggested searches by Google were crossed with a Venn diagram by some creative soul, and then the process was automated on the web by request. The result is a unique way to visualize and compare the data indexed by Google.

Here’s an example of what the diagram generator produces:

google-venn_people-girls-americans

So we can see from this graph that according to Google, lots of people are asking (or telling) why both people and girls are mean, why girls and Americans are dumb, and why people, girls, and Americans are all stupid.

I decided to try some queries of my own. I chose the terms “Chinese,” “Japanese,” and “English” as my recurring comparisons, and then added a little color to the results. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

how does _____ …

google-venn_how-does

Yikes, “how does Chinese water torture work“? Gotta love the intellectual curiosity. I like the “how does English sound to foreigners” question though.

learn _____ …

google-venn_learn

Apparently there’s a whole lot of learning going on in the DC area. It’s no surprise that people want to learn online for free, but it’s interesting that Chinese is the only language of the three that people expect to learn in 5 minutes. (Tip: it might take slightly longer than that.)

_____ grammar …

google-venn_grammar

Ah, good old ηš„. (I’m kind of surprised it trumped δΊ†, though.)

awesome _____ …

google-venn_awesome

stupid _____ …

google-venn_stupid

Why is _____ so damn…

google-venn_so-damn-hard

Ah, yes. But we expected that.

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John Pasden

John is a Shanghai-based linguist and entrepreneur, founder of AllSet Learning.

Comments

  1. David Moser Says: November 4, 2010 at 11:31 am

    This Venn diagram hack is very cool, opens up a whole new research domain, thanks. Why is Sinosplice so damn interesting?

  2. got to love it. Rules. All we have in common?

  3. Wow, that was really cool!
    I immediately went to check few suggestions, and came up with idea for a new blog post (all credit to you, of course πŸ˜‰ )

  4. This is so neat. I know Sinosplice is more about languages than culture, but you just have to try with this search to see stereotypes in action:

    “Why are X so”
    Where X is “the Chinese”, “the Japanese”, “Americans”

    Anyone want to guess who shares the traits rude, smart, and racist, at least according to popular conception?

  5. I tried “Chinese people”, “sports”, “friends” and common one is “important”.

  6. Venn Diagrams are an excellent way of teaching vocabulary!

  7. Nice collection. I use this all the time, it’s a great visual tool to get the point across about what words/ideas are related. When I want to make it look professional, I use Lucidchart’s online venn diagram generator tool. It’s fast and easy and does not require a download or anything

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