Recognizong the countries - Asia

South-East Asia : latin alphabet

6 countries use the latin alphabet in South-East Asia

Vietnam

Vietnamese has small words with too many accents.

vietnamese

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.

Jeepney in the Philippines

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.

address in Malaysia

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

flag of MalaysiaMalaysiaflag of IndonesiaIndonesia

-roads: in Malaysia, roads are numbered, sometimes with a letter in front of the number. There are no road numbers in Indonesia.

road numbers in Malaysia

-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.

wooden windows in Bhutan

-concrete blocks cordering the roads.

concrete blocks in Bhutan

Singapore

Singapore has :

-a mix of english and chinese languages.

-big buildings and skyscrapers.

-green street signs mentionning the building numbers.

street signs in Singapore

-black and white painting on the side of the roads.

painting on the side of the road in Singapore

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.

khmer script

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 :

thaï script

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.

lao script

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.

hangul script

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.

chinese script

You can easily differentiate chinese from japanese if there is a translation in latin alphabet:

road sign in Taïwan

Japanese

Compared to chinese, japanese has additionnal characters that are very basic :

japanese script

You can easily differentiate chinese from japanese if there is a translation in latin alphabet:

road sign in Japan

Tamil and Sinhalese

In Sri Lanka, Tamil and Sinhalese are the official languages. They both have many spirals in their script.

tamil and singhalese scripts

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.

bangla script