(I already asked the question on graphicdesign but people redirected me here. I guess there are people with that kind of expertise here.)
I have a PDF book to be translated in Japanese, and what wondering which fonts to use. My main languages are French and English and I have no experience with asian fonts. I would not be able to say if a font is OK for reading a Japanese book or not.
For example, in English or French books (Latin-alphabet typography), the font types normally used are serif font (Times Roman, Caslon, Bodoni and Garamond). Other font types would not be appropriate.
Is there such thing as Serif font or Roman fonts in Japanese?
Do you have any suggestions for a common Japanese Roman font?
Answer
There are counterparts to such things, but as the people on the graphicdesign website already mentioned, it will not be of any help to you to know which font to use since you do not seem to have any basic knowledge about the Japanese language. Do you know which of the long vowel characters to use in which mode of writing (vertical or horizontal)? Do you have the proper knowledge about 禁則処理? Probably not. Even if you choose the correct fonts, the product you come up with will probably be strange and full of mistakes to the level that it will look comical to a native speaker. The best idea is to let a native speaker of Japanese do all of that instead of you trying to do it.
Just for reference, the counterpart to serif is usually 明朝体 (or 教科書体 in some cases), and the counterpart to sans-serif is usually ゴシック体 or ゴチック体. If you cannot read these font names in Japanese, you should not attempt to use them.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : decasteljau , Answer Author : Community