# Can I mix English and Chinese in a search with elasticsearch Chinese analysis plugin?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-mix-english-and-chinese-in-a-search-with-elasticsearch-chinese-analysis-plugin/6430>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [January 18, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-mix-english-and-chinese-in-a-search-with-elasticsearch-chinese-analysis-plugin/6430 "2012-01-18T14:26:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![hau](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hau/32/3232_2.png) [@hau](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hau)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-mix-english-and-chinese-in-a-search-with-elasticsearch-chinese-analysis-plugin/6430/1 "2012-01-18T14:26:21Z")

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I am trying to use tire to index JSONs of objects in my rails application  
on an elasticsearch server. The article object JSON looks like:  
{  
"title": "article subject line",  
"tags": ["chinese", "food"],  
"content": "article content"  
}

where the field contents can be Chinese. So, another example with Chinese  
content could be:  
{  
"title": "中华料理Chinese Cuisine",  
"tags": ["中国", "食物", "Chinese", "food"],  
"content": "中国菜很好吃。"  
}

I set up elasticsearch with the Chinese analysis plugin.

When I did a search for "中华料理“ in the subject using a query\_string query,  
it correctly returned the instance with that string in the subject. But if  
did a search for "Chinese Cuisine" in the subject using a query\_string  
query, it told me that it did not find anything.

Is it possible to do both English and Chinese search on the same instance  
of elasticsearch with Chinese analysis plugin? If so, how should I set  
that up? Thanks for helping.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hau](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hau/32/3232_2.png) [@hau](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hau)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 2:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-mix-english-and-chinese-in-a-search-with-elasticsearch-chinese-analysis-plugin/6430/2 "2012-01-18T14:33:13Z")

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I noticed this behavior too. If the content has English and Chinese  
separated by a space, then both search in Chinese and English returns the  
correct result. That is, if the JSON document is  
{  
"title": "中华料理 Chinese Cuisine",  
"tags": ["中国", "食物", "Chinese", "food"],  
"content": "中国菜很好吃。"  
}

then a search with query string "中华料理" or a search with query string  
"Chinese Cuisine" both result in a match for the document.

Only search with the Chinese query string would work if there's no space.

How can I make both Chinese and English query string work if there's no  
space between the Chinese and the English in the indexed document?

---

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-mix-english-and-chinese-in-a-search-with-elasticsearch-chinese-analysis-plugin/6430/3 "2017-07-06T03:42:20Z")

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