Platforms

[mojo]

Just a though, shouldn't the various "platforms" on the forum actually be called "lines"?

 

Because in Japan the announcers say "the doors on line 2 are closing, take care please" and generally refer only to the tracks, not the platforms themselves. The kanji used is 線 (sen), which means "line". As in 新幹線 (shinkansen), literally "new main line".

 

I'm not sure there even is a word for platform in Japanese, at least not in the sense of a station platform. There is ホーム (houmu) but I think that's kinda different, like it can be two platforms if it's an island type with trains arriving on both sides.

[bill937ca]

Good idea.

 

[railsquid]

9 hours ago, mojo said:

I'm not sure there even is a word for platform in Japanese, at least not in the sense of a station platform. There is ホーム (houmu) but I think that's kinda different, like it can be two platforms if it's an island type with trains arriving on both sides.

 

"ホーム" is an abbreviation of プラットホーム (purattohoumu) and describes the physical structure. The difference is a bit like Gleis and Bahnsteig in German.

 

TBH if I was giving someone instructions in English to use a Japanese station, I'd say "take the Yamanote line from platform 13", rather than "take the Yamanote line from line 13" which would be confusing.

[Giugiaro]

Just thinking that in EU Portuguese we interchangeably use three different words for the same thing...

 

(Cais, Plataforma and Linha)

[mojo]

Ah, that makes sense! This is the problem with Japanese dictionaries, they usually lack this kind of detail about words being abbreviations or how they are used in context.

 

But why isn't it like スマホ, which is an abbreviation of スマートフォン? Seems like the full word would be プラットフォム.

 

I get フォ is kinda unofficial or at least too modern to have been used when プラットホーム was transliterated.