# Japanese characters full text search

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/japanese-characters-full-text-search/2072>\
**Category:** Sphinx & Full-Text Search\
**Created:** [January 31, 2008, 2:23am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/japanese-characters-full-text-search/2072 "2008-01-31T02:23:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![arthurica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e9bcb4/32.png) [@arthurica](https://forums.percona.com/u/arthurica)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 2:23am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/japanese-characters-full-text-search/2072/1 "2008-01-31T02:23:11Z")

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I am having some problems searching using the MATCH function for japanese words…

Here is the situation… As you might know japanese words are not separate with spaces… Here are 2 words (a composite one and a simple one)

1. ストライプジャケット (strive jacket)
2. ジャケット (jacket)

When I search for the first word I can find it. When I search for the second word (using MATCH function ojn a full text field) it will not find records containing the first word. It does makes sense to me since the words are not separated by spaces however how can I make it work?

I would like to mention that in some cases this will work even if the words are not separate by spaces so I guess I might be missing something

Is there an alternate solution for this? Most of the sites from Japan seems to have a solution for this and this applies for other sites as well

Any suggestion is really appreciate