I understand that the Japanese language uses a large proportion of Chinese ideograms in writing. Is there a foolproof way or some reliable shortcut to help one to distinguish which language one is faced with?

Japanese written language will be sprinkled with Hiragana and/or Katakana script that the Chinese do not use.

Peter Sharples, Berkhamsted

Japanese writing is traditionally based on Chinese characters but modern Japanese is only written with a subset of Chinese characters, called Kanji. Japanese has two further scripts called Hiragana and Katakana, which have deviated considerably in form from Chinese ideograms. Hiragana and Katakana characters tend to be simpler in their formation than Kanji, which is quite ornate. Most modern Chinese characters are also quite ornate. Therefore, any text which contains what appears to be a mixture of ornate and simple characters is probably Japanese; mostly ornate characters is likely to be Chinese.

Rebecca Stevens, Cambridge

Easy. Japanese writing has those little curly squiggles at intervals. Chinese doesn’t.

Fran Gillespie, Fortingall, Perthshire

There no foolproof way or reliable shortcut to distinguish between Japanese and Chinese writing except to learn one or the other of the two languages. Japanese writing contains, in addition to Chinese characters, a large number of more linear characters that read phonetically and can be recognised with practice.

Colin Sherwood, Longstanton, Cambridge

Why at club level do I often hear players scoring “5-love, 30-five, 40-five” instead of “15-love, 30-15, 40-15”? Is there any logical explanation? Or it is just laziness?

Laziness. It is easier to say 30-five than 30-fifteen. Thirty-forty is not worth shortening.

Iain Sinclair, Cambridge