Japanophile's Notes

JLPT December 2009 results are out !! I have cleared JLPT Level 1

2010-02-15T18:05:00.000+05:30

The JLPT December 2009 results are out !! I have cleared JLPT level 1, but with the minimum passing marks available !! :)

I got 280/400 = 70% which is in fact the passing percentage criteria for JLPT Level 1.
I got 72/100 marks in Vocabulary, 67/100 marks in Listening and 141/200 marks in Reading and grammar.

Even though I got perfect 70%, I am not sad or disappointed. Considering the time available for me from my daily routine and job, I tried my level best and gave my best shot.

One more interesting point to consider is that I passed JLPT level 1 in 3 years from the point I started learning Japanese language. This in itself is a good feat considering that people take minimum 4 years to get upto that level. This is in Indian context not sure about the condition in other countries.

Even though I have passed JLPT Level 1, I know that I have some weak areas and some strong areas to think about.
First the strong areas:
1. Good at IT related Japanese language
2. Good at Business Japanese.
3. Good at recognizing Kanji and words.
4. Good at analysing graphs, tables, IT business related content.

The weak areas:
As I learnt most of the Japanese language on my own, there are many weak areas if I compare myself with other students who have gone through the traditional run of the mill.
1. Weak at Giseigo, gitaigo. (Onomatopoeia and other similar words in Japanese)
2. Weak at adverbs. (Words without Kanjis)
3. Relatively weak at culture, traditional aspects of Japanese language(taught at universities)

From now on, I plan to concentrate on my weak areas and try to maintain the aspects of my Japanese language where I am good.
For the time being, I need some rest after the hectic schedule which I had for the entire year balancing my job, its deadlines, my Japanese language classes, assignments, etc.

I hope and I am confident that I will surely crack this exam with good marks next time !!

JETRO Business Japanese Test (BJT), November 2009 results out!! I got J2 !!

2010-01-30T16:45:00.001+05:30

I got the results of JETRO Business Japanese Test today. Though the results were out in Japan sometime ago, I got the result in Pune today.

I got J2 grade with 4 other students getting the same grade. On a personal note, !!I have got the highest marks in Pune center :)

The qualifications for JETRO BJT J2 grade are shown here.
The qualifications in short are:
1. Able to communicate appropriately in Japanese in limited range of business situations.

Party time folks !!

My result sheet:

Canon Electronics Office: An Office without chairs!!

2010-01-29T14:55:00.000+05:30

Sometime ago, I came across this article, but could not find time to post it on my blog. This article is quite old (published in May 2009). But, I thought of posting it on web as very few people in India know about the “strange”, “innovative”, “bizarre” initiative by Canon Electronics. With all due credit to the reporter of this news, I am just translating the content from Japanese to English with some opinions from my side. :)

(Chichibu factory, Canon Electronics)

The reporter went to Canon Electronics office, Chichibu factory, to find that there are absolutely no chairs in their office, barring a few exceptions like reception room. Chichibu office has no chairs in meeting rooms, development centers, administrative department, needless to say no chairs in president’s office as well!!

The President and CEO, Mr. Hisashi Sakamaki has written a book about this with the title – “Get Rid of Chairs, Computers and Grow Your Business”. In that book, he advocates such strong measures in his organization.

According to “Get Rid of Chairs”, as a result of removing chairs, annual meeting hours were reduced by half due to increasing concentration during meetings. In addition, communication among the standing employees became closer, which dramatically improved the accuracy and speed of resolving problems in the office. “The merits of removing chairs (such as cutting expenses and reducing space) are immeasurable.” said president Sakamaki in his book.

Employees were working with their PCs and answering phones, standing. Desks wore wooden “sandals” to adjust their heights to standing positions.

Employees walk so well, so as to make sure that they do not disturb anybody. They go back and forth so often between their desks and shelves for common use, placed in the back and passages of their office.

Papers and materials necessary for work are not kept on their desks but in the shelves. This is also one the reforms by President Sakamaki. To save time looking for papers and materials, everything for common use in the department or group were not possessed personally, but kept in those shelves.

Walking for some moments might be comfortable rather than standing still. Their employees’ desk looked so neat because of there is no special need to collect papers. Cleaning up desks is also what President Sakamaki recommends in “Get Rid of Chairs”.

The Walking Speed Machine

This is another initiative coming from President Sakamaki’s book. There is a blue painted zone in the hallway which says, “5 m 3.6 seconds”.

There are sensors installed at both ends of the 5m zone, which will sound an alarm in case someone could not pass through in 3.6seconds. “We got a big factory. We can’t ignore the time we spend moving around. This is a gadget for our employees to experience how fast to walk.” said president Sakamaki.

Well, what are we heading towards? Your views, opinions on this one? Is this a
reform to go ahead with considering the health centric, environmentalist approach which Japan follows? OR is it just insane and inhumane?

Google Japan launches Google Japanese Input (IME) beta version

2010-01-28T11:29:00.000+05:30

Google Japan’s development section announced on Google Japan official blog a project started from their famous 20% rule” produced a new Japanese input method “Google Japanese Input” application, both for Windows and Macintosh (currently for Intel 32 bit only, no 64 bit support).

After installation, you may choose Google IME(Input Method Environment) on your operating system.

For choosing Google IME, go to Regional and Language Options -> Languages -> Details.

In the Default Input language drop down, choose Google IME. After choosing, you can use Google IME on your system as shown below.

Then, your Japanese typing calls the IME. The user interface is not much different from other IME so no Japanese user should have difficulty to use.

The major advantages of Google IME are :

1. IME tools allow you to import/export your own dictionary difinitions, switch keybind to some popular existing input methods. You can optionally send all your typing and choices to Google server to improve their social dictionary for better conversion algorithm, which is also supported by other commercial and open source input method tools.

2. Google has massive Japanese data by their collecting web pages, which indexed and processed for search and Google suggest. That is a big advantage for showing better Japanese candidates. On the other hand, their boasting “automatically generate from texts on the web” approach may tend to show more colloquial results, popular choices than grammatically correct choices.

As an example of Google IME intelligence, if you type　今日（きょう） which means today, the available options in the IME drop down list are as follows:

Google displays not only the reading, but also uses intelligence to show today's date as one of the possible candidates of the enteret text, even though the reading of the entered text and candidate's text differ.

Historically, Japanese input method environment(IME) on personal computer has a long history because it is the critical application everyone needs, since 100-letters keyboard cannot handle over 3,000 letters in any way.

In MS-DOS era, there are many commercial IME competed, but for Windows and Macintosh, Operating System bundles one default embedded IME, purchased from Japanese companies, and most people are using that, except few people including professional writers who buy commercial IME such like ATOK by Just System, which once was the biggest Japanese word processor provider.

As IME is “more popular than web browser” application for Japanese, this release is causing a lot of buzz now and Japanese twitter timelines are now flooded with which minor/niche phrases/proper nouns they tested with the Google IME were properly converted, or not.

Download and give it a try !! :)

Google Talk About: An innovative service from GOOGLE for chatting in foreign languages

2010-01-27T14:51:00.000+05:30

Do you wish to chat with your friends in Japanese, but are sick of changing the keyboard layout or copy pasting from Japanese Editors?
Are you messed up with Japanese encoding which makes the text into MOJIBAKE?

If you are facing the same problems, please see the link below:
http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/merry-christmas-god-jul-and.html
http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2008/06/more-translation-bots.html

For people who want to chat in Japanese, follow the steps given below:

1. Add en2ja@bot.talk.google.com to your gtalk/ gmail from "Add Contact"
2. You will see an entry in your friends list by name - "en2ja"
3. Start chatting with this FRIEND :)

P.S: Do not use shortened words like - "How r u?" Use full words like - How are you?

You will be surprised to see the response !! :)

Special attention:
As this is machine translation and that too at its initial stages, this is in quite a preliminary stage still.
You can chat in other languages as well.
Please see the above mentioned links for the details.

Japanese business letters using Microsoft Office 2003 and later

2010-01-27T10:04:00.000+05:30

In Japan, business letters are used very frequently and you often have to read a lot of Japanese business letters, if you are working in a typical Japanese business environment.

In that context, a typical Japanese business letter starts with a salutation of season and salutation of appreciation. A typical letter ends with salutation and appreciation about the company.We usually have a tough time writing the business letters or reading the business letters, especially the 挨拶（あいさつ）Greeting, salutation part.

Microsoft Office 2003 and later provides a wonderful solution to this problem. It has a toolbar called – あいさつ文 or (Japanese Greetings).
The toolbar can be accessed by –
1. If you are using English version of Microsoft Office 2003 or later, go to View -> Toolbars -> Japanese Greetings.
2. If you are using Japanese version of Microsoft Office 2003 or later, go to 表示（Ｖ）-> ツールバー-> あいさつ文

Once you open, you see a dialog as shown below:

After opening this dialog, there are different options for Japanese greetings viz. Greeting, Opening salutations, And Closing salutations.
On pressing “Greeting” button you can see the following screenshot:

In this dialog, you can select the salutations, greetings for different months.

In addition, there are other options such as “Opening” salutation, closing salutations which are shown as below:
Opening salutation, words, and greetings:

Closing salutation, words, and greetings:

This really helps for a person who knows Japanese but is not that comfortable with writing Japanese business letters. This toolbar also saves our time in framing the correct salutation for a specific time. In addition, this can be really helpful for a person who is preparing for JETRO BJT (Business Japanese Test).

You can select the salutation sentences as per your wish and the salutation, greetings part of the Japanese business letter is done in a minute or two !!

Google launches “near-instant voice translation”

2009-12-28T17:14:00.000+05:30

Google held a major demonstration on December 7th 2009 at the Computer History Museum and displayed a number of incredible new features. Vic Gundotra, vice-president of engineering for Google showed off five great innovations.

But the one that is of interest to linguists was the "near-instant voice translation" service . This prototype allows you to search the web via voice, which is an amazing breakthrough, but it also provides near-instant translation. The initial prototype can handle only English to Spanish at the moment, and handles all the translation work in the cloud via your mobile phone.

Gundotra spoke a paragraph's worth of words into his phone and within seconds the phone recited a translated version back in Spanish. Google hopes to have support for all the world's major languages completed sometime in 2010.

This is an amazing development in the use of machine translation, but it has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Just like the machine translation we already know it will never be 100% accurate, and due to the differing accents and tones in peoples voices will probably give an even worse result than typed machine translation.

Though it has some short comings as stated above, Google should be applauded for this major development. However, it will take a lot of time and research before such applications replace humans for translation/interpretation. In the meantime, professional interpreters and transcribers are safe in their jobs. :)

Goroawase System - Japanese Mnemonics! Real fun !!

2009-12-23T12:56:00.000+05:30

In our school days, we had a really tough, yet fun time while remembering the order of the Solar system in Geography("My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine" for remembering - Mercury, Venus, Earth, etc etc in that order), or remembering the colors of the rainbow in Science(VIBGYOR). Apart from these commonly known mnemonics, we prepare our own mnemonics to memorize some things in our curriculum.

When it comes to Japanese, they have a peculiar system called as Goroawase(語呂合わせ).
Goroawase is a common form of Japanese wordplay whereby homophonous words are associated with a given series of letters, numbers or symbols, in order to associate a new meaning with that series. Goroawase is mostly used as a mnemonic technique, especially in the memorization of numbers such as dates in history, scientific constants, phone numbers, exam numbers, etc.

Here are some of the popular Goroawase:
As mnemonics:
1492 (the year of discovery of America) can be memorized as: iyo! kuni ga mieta! (derived as follows: i (1) yo (4)! ku (9) ni (2) (ga mieta)!), meaning: "Wow! I can see land!"
23564 (23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds, the length of a sidereal day) can be read "ni-san-go-ro-shi", which sounds very similar to "nii-san koroshi" (兄さん殺し), or in English killing one's brother.
Other examples:
4649 "yoroshiku" (derived as follows: "yo" (4) "ro" (6) "shi" (4) "ku" (9)) means: "Nice to meet you."
18782 can be read "i-ya-na-ya-tsu" (いやなやつ) – meaning unpleasant guy
893 can be read "ya-ku-za" (やくざ) or Yakuza. It is traditionally a bad omen for a student to receive this candidate number for an examination.
573 stands for "ko-na-mi" or Konami. This number appears in many Konami telephone numbers and as a high score in Konami games.
.59 "ten go ku" is the title of a song from the Konami game beatmania IIDX.
3923 "san kyu ni san", or "Thank you Nissan!"(Nii-san means elder brother, so it more like "Thank you, brother."). Found in the Online Comics of NBC TV Show Heroes, for which Nissan is a sponsor.
More recently, a popular book by name 1Q84(Ichi Kyuu Hachi Yon which is read as 1984) has been published in Japan and is a best seller already.

Happy reading and happy exploring Japanese language to all !!
Till then, 39(san kyuu = Thank you) from me !! :)

Mahatma Gandhi in Japanese Wikipedia - Makes for an interesting reading!!

2009-12-22T16:53:00.001+05:30

While surfing the web randomly for my Japanese language study, I came across an interesting webpage on Japanese edition of wikipedia.
LINK - http://tinyurl.com/yr8lqo
This link gives information about Mahatma Gandhi in Japanese language.
There are many interesting words in content. Here are some of the words which I found interesting:

I was amazed to see the power of expression Japanese language can impart to the words because of its unique capability to convey meanings through pictorial symbols. Happy reading to all !! I am sure there are many other such interesting words in this article as well as other Japanese content.

Let us collect such great words!!

Localization of Japanese Software products

2009-08-18T11:57:00.000+05:30

Localization testing is a part of software testing process focused on internationalization and localization aspects of software. Localization is the process of adapting a globalized application to a particular culture/locale. Localizing an application requires a basic understanding of the character sets typically used in modern software development and an understanding of the issues associated with them. Localization includes the translation of the application user interface and adapting graphics for a specific culture/locale. The localization process can also include translating any help content associated with the application.

As an example, let us consider a typical "Windows Desktop Application" developed using .NET technologies as a Localization testing candidate.

For starters, please go through the link given below:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688110.aspx

In addition, here are some of the points which one can think of:

1. Localization strings testing(If they are displaying correct/meaningful Japanese)

2. Font management(Check the character encoding system which is followed Unicode, JIS, Shift JIS)

3. Areas where string processing is involved(input/output of the Japanese strings)

4. Locale setting on OS.(Setting Japanese Locale on English OS, vice versa, check the RS/FS to see the expected behavior)

5. Behavior of S/W on higher end of Windows Vista (Ultimate/Enterprise editions - They support a feature called as language pack.Due to this, even if OS is English, we can see OS UI in Japanese, etc.)

6. S/W based specific cases of localization.(such as requirement to switch language at runtime)

7. Display of Japanese characters correctly.(Sometimes if the character encoding is not supported at any point(OS level, fonts missing, S/W level - encoding support missing))

8. Looking at String table(in case of .NET applications for strings)

These are the points which are common to all Japanese localization processes.
The procedures to be followed may vary depending on following points:

Developement environment
SDLC type - Waterfall, Agile.
Delivery Document in Japanese (Test Cases in Japanese language)
STLC - Manual, Test Automation using QTP, Test Complete, etc.

Rikaichan : Reading Japanese webpages using a pop-up dictionary

2009-07-12T15:02:00.000+05:30

There is lot of LIVE learning material(here, I mean material in Japanese) of Japanese available on the internet. LIVE learning material is very important because language learning after some stage is not only about reading prescribed textbooks but also learning by exposure to LIVE language usage. But many people which I encountered keep safe distance from internet and do not see internet as a LEARNING MATERIAL.
To make use of internet as a learning material easier, there is a tool named RIKAICHAN.

Here is some information about RIKAICHAN :
1. RIKAICHAN is a Firefox extension that displays a popup showing the English definition of Japanese words as your cursor passes over them.
2. RIKAICHAN can be enabled/ disabled with a single right click.
3. Currently, RIKAICHAN can be used with Mozilla Firefox web browser only.

Follow the instructions given below to install RIKAICHAN for your Firefox browser:
1. If Mozilla firefox is installed on PC, proceed to step 2. Otherwise, install it using the link http://www.blogger.com/www.mozilla.com/firefox/
2. In Firefox browser, go to Tools->Add Ons
3. In Add ons dialog, select Get Add ons option.
4. In the text box which is seen below, type rikaichan and search for add on.
5. Click on "Add to firefox" button and install Rikaichan add on to Firefox.
6. Once Rikaichan is installed, install word dictionary from the link http://rikaichan.mozdev.org/
7. Once the Word dictionary is installed, you are ready to use RIKAICHAN.

Here is an example of one practical usage of RIKAICHAN:

Enjoy roaming in the inexhaustible world of LIVE Learning material using RIKAICHAN !!

Installing East Asian Language Support on Windows XP

2009-07-08T15:21:00.000+05:30

A very common question which I face from many linguists which are first time users of Computers is - How do I read and write in Japanese using my PC. OK.. Here is the answer:

This blog outlines the steps for installing East Asian languages on a computer running Windows XP so that the user can both read and write in them. The method to install east Asian langauge support on other Windows OS is more or less same.

1. First open the Control Panel dialog box by clicking on the Start button, and then click on Control Panel. By default the Control Panel is in the new Category View. If that is the case, click on Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options under Pick a Category. If not, you can either click on Switch to Category View to bring it up, or work in the Classic View (in that case just double click on the Regional and Language Options icon to open the Regional and Language Options dialog box.

2. You get the Regional and Language Options dialog box as shown above. Click on the Languages tab.

3. You are now under the Languages tab for the Regional and Language Options dialog box.

4. Check the box for Install East Asian Languages under Supplemental language support. Then click Apply and OK.
5. Once the language files have been installed, click on the Details ... button under Text services and input languages while you are still under the Languages tab for the Regional and Language Options dialog box. You get the Text Services and Input Languages dialog box.

Then click on the Add.. button under Installed services.
6. After you have clicked the Add .. button under Installed services in the Input LocalesText services and input languages dialog box , you get the Add Input Language dialogue box. Choose Japanese from the drop-down list under Input Language, check the Keyboard Layout / IME button, and then pick Microsoft IME Standard 2002 ver 8.1. Then click OK.

7. You are now back to the Text Services and Input Languages dialog box. Note that under Japanese /Keyboard, Microsoft IME Standard 2002 ver 8.1 is now listed. Click Apply OK.

8. You are now ready to both read and write Chinese and/or Japanese in your documents. You will see near the upper right hand corner of the Windows desktop the Language bar button , which allows users to change the input language in an application by left clicking on it to bring up the language choices available and then selecting and clicking the desired language. Note that within the same document you can change the input language by using the Language bar. You can produce a document with a mixture of different languages.

After doing all this, you can finally write in Japanese, or for that matter any East Asian language like Chinese, Korean, etc.

To know more about different very useful functions of Microsoft IME,
please visit the two links given below:
http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/index.html
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/handson/user/IME_Paper.mspx

For any questions, suggestions, opinions, please drop me a comment !!

Japanese Language, Internet and Computers !!

2009-07-06T17:15:00.000+05:30

Throughout my journey of Japanese language learning, I have come across many intelligent, smart people who have helped me in my never ending quest to master this wonderful language. I have met some Indian people with unbelievable Japanese language capability and some people who have got incredible techie brains to handle insatiable Japanese customers/ clients. I have met some tremendously capable Japanese translators with amazing language capabilites. But a strikingly common feature in most of those people, is the lack of awareness in the use of Computer, internet in the process of Japanese language learning. Being from a technical background and having considerable linguistic flair and technical background, I am always bombarded with many questions which I have to answer on case by case basis, individually.

This provoked me to start a blog on Japanese, use of PC and internet to learn Japanese language.

Here I take this opportunity to share the use of PC, internet to learn JAPANESE - a language I like LIKE.NO.OTHER!!