South-East Asia : latin alphabet
6 countries use the latin alphabet in South-East Asia
Vietnam
Vietnamese has small words with too many accents.
Philippines
Filipinos speak a variety of local languages, the most common is the Tagalog. However, many location and family names are hispanic, and english is also very common.
You are in the Philippines if :
-price is in PHP.
-there are ads for SMART or GLOBE cell phone loads.
-You see political posters for a Senator/Mayor/Barangay Captain.
-You see a jeepney, the most used vehicle for public transports.
Malaysia and Indonesia
Both countries have a lot in common : tropical landscapes, predominance of islam, the malay language with sometimes a little english.
Many addresses are written everywhere.
In this address, Jalan (abbreviated JL) means street, then we have the post code and the city of Kuantan, and finally the Pahang province.
3 tips to differentiate Indonesia and Malaysia :
-the flag
 | Malaysia |  | Indonesia |
|---|
-roads: in Malaysia, roads are numbered, sometimes with a letter in front of the number. There are no road numbers in Indonesia.
-the currency : Malaysia uses RM (ringitt malay), Indonesia uses RP (roupies).
Bhutan
Even though Bhutan has its own Dzongkha script, they write mostly in latin alphabet.
Example of Dzongkha letters : ༄༅། །འགྲོ་བ་མི་རིགས་ག་ར་དབང་ཆ་འདྲ
Bhutan has :
-himalayan landscapes.
-wooden windows.
-concrete blocks cordering the roads.
Singapore
Singapore has :
-a mix of english and chinese languages.
-big buildings and skyscrapers.
-green street signs mentionning the building numbers.
-black and white painting on the side of the roads.
Khmer, Thai & Lao
Thaï and Lao look almost identical, they re both an evolution from the khmer language.
Khmer
Khmer script used in Cambodia has shpes at the top of the letters.
If you're in Cambodia, you will probably find some ad for the cambodian's people party or for the anghkor beer.
Thaï script
The prticularity of the Thaï script are the small rounds at the extremities of the letters :
Lao script
Thaï and Lao are hard to differentiate, but Laos has very little coverage and it's quite rare, so if you're a beginner i recommend you always guess in Thailand.
Korean, Japanese and Chinese alphabets
Korean Hangul alphabet has a unique look. Japanese and chinese share many characters.
Korean
Korean alphabet, named Hangul, has 24 symbols. Each korean sign is a 3 letters syllable, with one letter top left, one letter top right, and one letter at the bottom.
obviously, North Korea does not have any streetview coverage.
Chinese
In geoguessr, the main chinese-speaking area is Taïwan, but the cities of Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore also have streetview coverage.Chinese alphabet has many symbols, which are all quite complicated.
You can easily differentiate chinese from japanese if there is a translation in latin alphabet:
Japanese
Compared to chinese, japanese has additionnal characters that are very basic :
You can easily differentiate chinese from japanese if there is a translation in latin alphabet:
Tamil and Sinhalese
In Sri Lanka, Tamil and Sinhalese are the official languages. They both have many spirals in their script.
Bangla
The characteristic of the Bangla script, used in Bangladesh, is the continuous lign at the top of the words. It is very similar to the indian scripts, but there is no streetview coverage in India except in historic places.
