Which country is more technologically advanced; Germany or Japan?

德国 VS 日本，谁的科技更发达？

以下是Quora网友的评价：

Martin Schneider

It’s a toss-up, really. Simply put, they are on the same general (high) level, and any “win” will entirely depend on the way you count your scores.

To give a few examples:

这很难说，真的。简单地说，两国水平相当，任何“优势”都完全取决于分数的统计方式。

举几个例子：

If you take all roads into account (not only highways/autobahn), then Germany has a somewhat better overall road quality. Japan’s train and public transport network on the other hand is way more extensive and organized.

如果你对比两国的道路(不仅仅是高速公路/高速公路)，那么德国的整体道路质量要好一些。但日本的火车和公共交通网络更大、更有组织。

In terms of architecture and area development, Japan is more focused on its big cities, meaning average rural Germany will usually “beat” average rural Japan—yet at the same time, the sophistication level / complexty of Germany’s big cities can’t hold a candle to those in Japan, least of all compared to the moloch that is Tokyo.

在建筑和区域发展方面，日本更重视大城市，这意味着德国乡村的情况通常会“超过”日本—但与此同时，德国大城市的发达程度无法与日本相比，尤其是无法与东京相比。

The average private home in Germany is somewhat more modern and permanent (which is different from being earthquake proof) and uses more novel materials and installations. Admittedly, most new houses are being built to a similar or higher standard in Japan now, but the historical backlog still gives Germany an edge here.

德国的普通私人住宅在某种程度上会更现代化，更持久耐用，使用更多新材料和新装置。当然，现在日本的大多数新房也都是按照类似或更高的标准建造的，但历史存留的房屋还是让德国在这方面占得优势。

Home appliance quality differs wildly depending on the field. Things like toilets, kitchen machines and home entertainment electronics are more sophisticated in Japan, while others such as washing machines, dryers and other large appliances are only now catching up to the energy efficiency, sound and convenience levels long prevalent in Germany.

不同领域的家电质量差别很大。日本的马桶、厨房电器和家庭娱乐电子产品等设备更为先进，而洗衣机、烘干机和其他大型电器的能效、静音和便利水平直到现在才赶上德国。

Similarly, healthcare and medicine are top notch on both sides, but Japan picked some different focus topics than Germany.

同样，两国的医疗保健和医药都是一流的，但日本的重点研发领域和德国不同。

Law and order standards are high, with the slight difference that police is both more present/visible and integrated into the cityscape in Japan. Petty street level crime is more absent in Japan than in Germany, but more profitable “white-collar” crime is comparably widespread on both sides.

两国的法律和秩序标准都很高，不同之处在于，日本警察更常见。日本的小规模街头犯罪比德国少，但“白领”犯罪在两国都相当普遍。

The consumer experience is vastly superior in Japan (service, care, attention, wrap, etc.), though that is perhaps more a cultural thing than objective “development”. Japanese products are a bit more feature-oriented, German ones a bit simpler in favor of sturdiness… yet apart from that (and barring specialist/traditionalist sectors), the product quality as such is very comparable across the two.

日本的消费者体验要更好(服务、关怀、关注、包装等方面)，虽然这可能更多是源于文化因素，而非客观的“发达”。日本产品更注重功能，德国产品更简单，更强调耐用性，但除此之外(除了专业/传统领域)，两国的产品质量非常相似。

… and so on, and so forth. You can pick almost any field, and will soon find that the two sides will come out as “different but mostly equal.”

等等，等等。你随便选择一个领域，就会发现双方“虽然不同但基本相当”。

Volker Motzkus

In what field? Both countries are, for lack of a better word, engineering hubs. The Germans like to think of the japanese as their counterparts in asia, i.e. an earnest, efficient people who get things done, with an artisanial tradition, who take pride in their work.

So there is some similarity there, and a lot of respect going both ways, which leads to a few fun facts, for examples, in Germany, japanese knives are considered top-quality wares and priced accordingly. Guess what? In Japan, german knives have that reputation.

在哪个领域呢？我找不到更好的词来形容，但这两个国家都是工程中心。德国人喜欢把日本人视为其在亚洲的对手，觉得日本人是认真、高效的民族，有工匠传统，为自己的工作感到自豪。

因此两者有一些相似之处，双方彼此尊重，这就产生了一些有趣的事实，例如，在德国，人们认为日本刀具品质极高，价格也很高。结果你猜怎么着？在日本，德国刀具也有同样的名声。

Having gotten that out of the way, Both countries do appear to have a similar ethic, and a “trust in engineering” outlook, which is why engineers are so praised, and also why the germans were so shocked when the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant blew up. I mean, this was not some decrepit country (who probably skimped on maintanance), running some age-old, inherently dangerous (best of all: soviet) reactor design, which everybody agreed was unsafe to begin with, no, THIS HAPPENED IN JAPAN.

说到这一点，这两个国家似乎确实拥有相似的伦理道德，也都有“信任工程”的观点，所以工程师受到社会的称赞，这也是德国人在福岛核电站发生爆炸时感到非常震惊的原因。我的意思是，日本不是一个老旧的国家(老旧国家可能不舍得在维护上投入资金)，运行的不是古老的、危险的反应堆，不，这可是发生在日本啊。

The Japanese Are Like Us. If it can happen there, to Them…

I would say it really, really depends on where you are looking. Sure, in some areas, the Germans are more savvy, but the Japanese best understood how to make an actual product out of it. And vice versa. In mobile communications, Japan is light years ahead of anybody else, and I would say that that also applies to some of their other sectors as well. In classical industrial fields (chemicals, toolmaking, optics, precision mechanics) I’d still give the nod to Germany, we like to improve slow but steady; but we’ve been at this for a long time.

日本人和我们一样。如果这种事能发生在他们身上，那么……

我想说，这真的，真的取决于你从什么角度来看待。当然，在某些方面，德国人更精明，但日本人更明白要如何造出真正的产品。反之亦然。在移动通信方面，日本遥遥领先于其他国家，我想说的是，日本还有其他一些领域也有优秀。在经典的工业领域(化学、工具制造、光学、精密机械)，我还是会支持德国，我们喜欢稳扎稳打，我们已经深耕了很长时间了。

Hne Ne

One thing to consider is the economic structure of Japan. The Japanese economy is dominated by small businesses. 99.2% of the ca. 4 million registered companies are small companies, which are very conservative in their adoption of new technologies.

This said, basically it comes down to employee productivity. Japanese employees typically work long hours, yet, they have the worst non-manufacturing productivity of all OECD countries, the typical American employee is twice as productive than his Japanese counterpart. This is a direct consequence of the slow adoption of new IT-related technologies in the workplace in Japan. In Japan employees will work very long, overtime is often mandatory and working on Saturdays is common. In Germany, many companies have a 38,5h work-week and overtime is highly taxed by the Government, so unless it’s really required to finish a project you don’t do overtime.

需要考虑的一点是日本的经济结构。日本经济以小企业为主。在约40万家注册公司中，99.2%都是小公司，它们在采用新技术方面非常保守。

也就是说，这基本上可以归结为员工的生产力。日本员工通常工作时间很长，但他们的非制造业生产率是所有经合组织国家中最差的，美国员工的生产率是日本员工的两倍。这是日本公司不会积极采用新IT相关技术的直接后果。在日本，员工的工作时间很长，通常会强制性加班，周六工作也是很普遍的事。在德国，许多公司每周工作时间只有38.5小时，超时加班会被政府征收很高的税，所以除非真的急需完成一个项目，否则你不会加班。

Another aspect of the economy is the traditional very low unemployment rate of typically 2–3%, which is one of the lowest rates of all OECD countries. This is rate is “bought” through employing a lot of of people, who would not be employed if the productivity was higher.

So it really depends how you view it. The Japanese economy produces technologically advanced products but at a low productivity, which means employees have to work a lot more because they don’t fully use the potential of new technologies. Germany produces technologically advanced products at a very high productivity, which means employees will work fewer hours but with massive use of modern technologies to achieve this productivity.

日本经济的另一个特点是失业率长期很低，通常只有2-3%，这是经合组织国家中最低的失业率之一。这种失业率是通过雇佣大量的劳动力来“实现”的，如果生产率提高，这些人就不可能会被雇佣。

这取决于你怎么看待这个问题了。日本经济能制造技术先进的产品，但生产率很低，这意味着员工不得不做更多的人工工作，因为他们没有充分利用新技术的潜力。德国则会以非常高的生产率生产技术先进的产品，这意味着员工的工作时间更少。

Shrinivas S

Germany is ahead, but the difference is not enormous.

Both Germans and Japanese are industrial and technological giants whose products are the benchmark for quality worldwide. Both have clear export oriented manufacturing economies and both face horrendous demographic future due to aging and in addition Germany has declining native population.

德国领先于日本，但二者的差距并不大。

德国和日本都是工业和科技巨头，他们的产品是全球质量的标杆。两国都是出口导向型制造业经济，由于老龄化，两国都面临着可怕的人口数据，此外，德国的本土人口越来越少。

Let’s take some basic parameters-

我们对比一些基本参数吧

Roads- Germany is a clear winner. The autobahns of course were invented in Germany

Railways - Here both countries have good railways, though the Japanese have a minor edge due to their more numerous high speed rails.

Energy from renewable sources - Germany generates much more energy from renewable sources as compared to Japan, the gap only increased post Fukushima.

Economy - Germany has lesser taxes and more per capita income.

Health - The Japanese live much longer, so i guess either their genetics are far better or healthcare is much better.

Overall work/life balance - Germany scores higher, more leaves/holidays, vacations, less hours worked per week.

道路—德国显然是赢家。高速公路就是德国发明的。

铁路—这两个国家都有很好的铁路，日本有小小的优势，因为日本的高铁更多。

可再生能源—与日本相比，德国从可再生能源中生产了更多的能源，福岛事故后差距只会扩大。

经济—德国的税收较低，人均收入较高。

健康—日本人寿命更长，所以我猜要么是他们的基因好，要么是他们的医疗保健好。

工作/生活平衡—德国得分更高，休假/假期更多，每周工作时间更少。

Ron

Pretty balanced, both are “Gods” of technologies. But if we see from another side, one of them are better than another one.

Here is the list of who's better at :

旗鼓相当，两者都是技术之神。但如果我们从另一个角度看，是可以分出胜负的：

Innovation : Japan

Quality of stuff : Germany

Cleanliness : Japan

Automotive : Germany

Railway system : Japan

Road quality : Japan

Cheaper prices : Japan

Military Technology : Germany

Top Universities : Germany

Aerodinamics : Germany

Robotic : Japan

Neatness : Japan

Architecture : Germany

Daily houses equipments : Japan

Heavy stuff : Germany

Light stuff : Japan

ICT : Japan

Software engineering : Japan

Animation : Japan

Safeties vehicles : Germany

Films & Animation industries : Japan

创新能力：日本

产品质量：德国

洁净程度：日本

汽车行业：德国

铁路系统：日本

道路质量：日本

价格低廉：日本

军事技术：德国

顶尖大学：德国

空气动力学：德国

机器人：日本

整洁度：日本

建筑业：德国

家用电器：日本

大型设备：德国

轻工业：日本

集成电路：日本

软件工程：日本

动画：日本

安全车辆：德国

电影和动画产业：日本

Avinash Sharma

I've lived in both Japan and Germany and talking about how technology is involved in a common man's life, I would say Japan is light years ahead of Germany.

Technology in the workplace: I think both are pretty close, with Japan edging it slightly.

我在日本和德国都生活过，若谈到科技如何融入普通人的生活，我会说日本比德国领先好几光年。

工厂里的技术：我认为两者非常接近，日本略微领先。

Tisho Yanchev

Germany by far. I can’t even say Japan is technologically advanced to begin with. Have you lived in Japan? Fax machines are the norm there, most small and midsize companies don’t even have websites, the ones that do have websites look like the early dot com bubble era style websites. Internet explorer is still the most used browser, many office computers still use Windows XP. Their robots which everyone praises are completely 100% useless in practical terms, they can only smile and look futuristic but can’t do anything in practice. Everything in Japan is made just to look good, the entire focus is on the image, and not the content. When the US and German auto industries began shifting into self driving cars, or cars with semi autonomous functions, Japanese cars left far behind. It was Audi that first introduced a self driving car, and self parking one if i am not mistaking, and it was German cars that made the shift towards hybrid vehicles, while Japanese cars were again catching up later.

德国遥遥领先。你在日本生活过吗？传真机在日本是标配，大多数中小型公司都没有自己的网址，有网址的公司看起来也像早期互联网泡沫时代的网站。Internet explorer还是最常用的浏览器，许多办公电脑仍然使用Windows XP。每个人都交口称赞的机器人在实践中毫无用处，他们只能微笑，看起来很科幻，但在实践中什么也做不了。

在日本，一切都是为了颜值，大家都关注外观，而非内容。当美国和德国汽车行业开始转向自动驾驶汽车或半自动驾驶汽车时，日本汽车远远落在了后面。奥迪率先推出了自动驾驶汽车，如果我没记错的话，它还推出了可以自动泊车的汽车。德国率先转向混合动力汽车的研究，日本只能亦步亦趋地跟随。