Kindle Paperwhite: Powerful for Japanese Study

 Education, Foreign Languages, Japan, Japanese Language, Technology, Travel  Comments Off on Kindle Paperwhite: Powerful for Japanese Study
Jun 052014
 

I finally bit the bullet and bought a second Kindle Paperwhite, this time for my Japanese language library. And I don’t regret it one bit. It has become an incredibly powerful tool for improving my Japanese, because I read more books, faster, with the Paperwhite than I have with any other reading platform.

And I’ve tried a bunch of different ways to read Japanese books.

Note that some of these are perfectly fine for English language books, but I’m judging them on their usefulness as Japanese learning tools.

I have tried:

  • Paper Books and an Electronic Dictionary.
    • Disadvantages:
    • Not portable
    • Slow lookups disrupt reading
    • Tiny text kills my eyes.

 

  • Vertical Text Viewer (for Android).
    • Disadvantages:
    • Lookups are easier, but require an external app, which can’t search online dictionaries if I’m on a plane, so EPWING dictionaries have to be added.
    • Only Aozora Bunko formatted e-books work with it. That means I can access a library of out-of-copyright books, but nothing current. (Not legally, anyway.)

 

  • OCR Manga Viewer (for Android). Takes images, OCRs selected text, and offers a list of possible definitions.
    • Disadvantages:
    • Supported file format is scanned images, so no legal way of getting current titles, unless I scan every book I buy page by page.
    • Constant dragging and selecting finicky text selection tool gets annoying after a while.
    • Even if there are scans, if the scan quality isn’t perfect, the OCR software will have issues, so I’m back at the electronic dictionary stage again.

 

  • Amazon Kindle App (for Android). Updside: You can save a lot on shipping, and you can make text bigger. Long press on a word to look it up. (See disadvantages!)
    • Disadvantages:
    • There is only one dictionary. It’s Japanese-Japanese, and you better like it, because you can’t use any others with the simple long press function. The other option is search in another book, which is slow.
    • Most books are text files, but a small portion are scans. If you wind up with a scan of a book you want to read, you will have no way of looking up words inside the program.
    • The dictionary search function does not de-conjugate verbs, which makes the dictionary useless.

 

  • Google Play Books and Magazines App (for Android). Updside: I couldn’t really find one.
    • Disadvantages:
    • No dictionary I could find.
    • Couldn’t find any current popular Japanese books in the Play store. Couldn’t access the Japanese Play store without a VPN, and even then, Google sent me back to the US store.
    • The only books I could find were all scans of out-of-copyright books, or books I’ve never heard of by publishers I’ve never heard of.

 

Why Paperwhite?

So there you have it. Nothing really works the way I want to, well, except for the Kindle Paperwhite. Kind of. The Paperwhite is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall I think it’s the best way to read Japanese books on an electronic device.

The Paperwhite has the long press to look up a word feature that the Kindle app has, which it turns out is incredibly useful, because you can add extra dictionaries to the search. So if I can’t find a word in one dictionary, I can select another and another, as many as I have on the device. And I’m not limited to just Japanese-Japanese, I can get Japanese-English, etc. (I recommend getting one of the EDICT-based Japanese-English dictionaries. They’re cheap and good enough.)

Also, the Paperwhite will de-conjugate any verbs it comes across, making the dictionaries useful again.

The e-ink display is incredibly easy on the eyes, even for long-term viewing, and doesn’t guzzle battery, making it a good choice for long flights. Text can be enlarged, too. It looks really good.

It comes with a 単語帳, which records every word you look up, and lets you go over them as flash cards. Not as versatile as Anki, but a hell of a lot less fussing is involved. And it automatically shows you the sentence you were in when you looked up the word! If it only did SRS, it would be perfect. Oh well.

Using it, I’ve been plowing through books at an alarming rate. Alarming in that I’ve never been able to read Japanese this fast before.  I’m being serious here. I’ve tried a whole bunch of different ways of going about it, but this gives me the most enjoyment with the highest overall comprehension. And I can try books that may be a little too hard for me, because I have the dictionaries to fall back on.

Early on, manga looked bad on it. Really bad. But lately, publishers have gotten on board, and while it’s not as good as holding a real 単行本 in your hands, it’s good enough for travel. You can even zoom in on images with a comic reading mode that isn’t too bad. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s getting a lot better. (I wish Amazon would come out with a bigger Paperwhite that did manga at a bigger size for ease of reading.)

I’m saving the biggest plus for last: what I’m saving on shipping and space taken up by books. It’s incredible. Oh, sure, I’m a bibliophile. I am surrounded by books. But I am not against using an e-ink device to read material like fiction. I just don’t care much about that. (Art and music are different. I like those on paper. Same with manga. Give me paper books… unless I’m traveling. Ugh.)

Now, it does not come without drawbacks. And they may be deal-breakers for some of you.

What it won’t help you with.

For starters, setting up an account with Amazon Japan in order to get access to the books takes some work. Amazon US has Japanese books, but the selection is a mess, and all the titles are in romaji, making it a big useless pile of nonsense words to me. I don’t do romaji, and nobody should have to in order to read Japanese books. Also, Amazon US doesn’t have anything I’d even want to read if I could find it. We’re back at the publisher problem. 20th century business practices in the 21st century. Ugh.

Also, if you already have a Kindle Paperwhite and use it with another Amazon, like Amazon US or UK, then go buy another one. The only way you can use one Paperwhite for both accounts is to constantly wipe it and reset it. Yes, I think that’s dumb, too, but there you go.

And don’t try buy a Paperwhite from Amazon Japan. Even if you use a service like Tenso, they will send you a polite warning never to do that again, or else your account will be closed for good. It’s odd, but they don’t care if you buy anything else and have it shipped to the US by a third party, but if you do it with a Kindle, there’ll be hell to pay.

The device itself tends to get slow over time. Hold down the power button and reboot it if it starts acting sluggish. I usually have to do it once a week or two.

Sometime Amazon Japan will have issues with my credit cards, for no apparent reason I can find.

I can’t find a good way to get at my 単語帳 outside of the Paperwhite. That kind of sucks. I’d love to be able to export it to Anki. So much for that.

There are a lot of books not available as Kindle versions yet. A lot of books I really want to read. And some Kindle versions don’t come out until a month or two after the print version. But with patience comes big savings, and it also keeps me from over-buying. I only buy what I intend to read right now.

Finally, the DRM. It’s annoying. But it’s the trade-off I knew I had to make when going Kindle for Japanese. On the upside, as soon as a book is available in the Kindle store in Japan, I can be reading it if I so desire, at a fraction of what I would usually pay for having the real book shipped.

Summing it up.

So my advice to aspiring learners of Japanese is to get a Paperwhite. But first set up a test account with Amazon Japan and make sure you can buy books from them. Maybe try it on another device first, like an Android or iOS device.

Were I Amazon, I would publicize the heck out of this as a learning tool. The Japanese government is desperate to get new workers into the country, and to help teach people Japanese. This device would be a great tool for that, while also giving overseas fans a legit way to buy into “Cool Japan” without hassle. Everybody wins. Really. Everybody. (Well, except for DHL.)

Makes Me Want to Eat My Phone!

 Japan, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on Makes Me Want to Eat My Phone!
Nov 132011
 

Started off the day by going to Book-Off in Okazaki on 248 to check on a few things. For starters, don’t even bother trying to find Japanese textbooks at Book-Off, because they don’t seem to carry them. I did find some other cheap books there, though.

I headed back to the apartment to drop off my used books, then headed to JR Okazaki to head off to Nagoya again. It was a late start, so I didn’t get to Nagoya until 3:30, and I finally got to Maruzen in Sakae around 4:30 or so. I spent a lot of time looking at book covers. Maruzen has a lot of book covers there, and in a lot of sizes, but unfortunately, they don’t have any big enough to deal with the ultra-thick books I’ve been buying lately.

I went back to the 3rd floor to look at the Japanese language education books again. They have a really good selection. I picked up some good practice books, because for some reason, I suck at particles. I really want to fix the stuff I keep getting wrong.

I Discovered Oatmeal!

Then I went to the grocery store next door, it’s in the Meiji-ya Sakae building. (Look for 明治屋栄.)

The store had a lot of neat “foreign” foods, and a nice selection. It even had Odlum’s Steel Cut Oats, which are sold in the U.S. as McCann’s. Of course, now I feel like a fool for shipping so much oatmeal over in the first place, but I had no idea they would have oatmeal, let alone proper steel cut oatmeal, in Japan. It’s really smashing stuff for breakfast.

Book-Off was having a 105 yen sale, so I grabbed a few books (yeah, I just bought some in Okazaki, now I’m buying more in Sakae).

After that, I headed over to Osu to see if I could find the Kenkyuusha dictionary for my electronic dictionary at the big electronics store there. No luck. I went to one of the used video game stores there, and found Valkyria Chronicles 3 for the PSP for 1200 yen.

This Time, Try Asking Someone

I decided to go back to JR Nagoya and check Bic Camera again to see if I could get my hands on that Kenkyuusha dictionary. This time I decided to ask around a bit. After some asking around and explaining, the salesperson found a copy of the dictionary I wanted. It’s the Kenkyuusha 5th edition 和英 dictionary for the Casio electronic dictionaries. Score!

I used all of the points I had saved up for now to reduce the cost of the dictionary by about 2500 yen. See, this is where point cards are really handy. A 12,000 yen dictionary only cost me about 9,500 yen. Still expensive, but much cheaper than the paper version, which runs around 20,000 yen, and it fits in my pocket. (Sort of.)

Makes Me Want to Eat My Phone

I looked around to see if I could find a privacy guard for my Nexus One. I couldn’t find one that would fit, but I did see a lot of crap I can glue on my cell phone.

They had all kinds of fake crystals and candy and cupcakes and such… I think I’ll pass for now. I don’t want to cut my hands to shreds on platic candy. (Or see plastic candy all the time and get hungry.)

All of this running around made me hungry, so I headed to Mokumoku again to store up on more vegetables and that great beef stew. I really needed those veggies, even if they cost 2500 yen. (Hey, it’s all you can eat.) Dinner was once again delicious, even if my wallet took a hit. I’ll make up for it during the week by eating cheaply.

I know, I could buy local vegetables and make them more cheaply, but I don’t have the time for it right now.

I made it back to JR Okazaki at 10 pm, and got home at about 10:15 or so. I stopped at Family Mart to get some sandwiches, because I eat Spartan during the week. (If Spartans ate pre-made convenience store ham sandwiches, anyway.)

Installing the Dictionary

I spent about an hour installing the dictionary. I had to run it in Vista emulation mode to get it to run in Win 7-64, then I had to load a piece of software from the Casio website just to get the laptop to recognize the electronic dictionary. Pain in the butt, but it works.

If you have trouble installing dictionaries or getting your Casio recognized by Windows 7, I would head to the Casio Japanese website and look for the bonus software for the Ex-Word series. Installing it will install the correct USB drivers for detecting the Ex-Word series of electronic dictionaries. Now you can run the install software on the dictionary disc.

The good news is that you only have to do it once.

The Student’s New Clothes

Now I need to find some big & tall sports clothes. My North Face shirts are rapidly disintegrating, and it’s getting colder these days. Apparently, the velcro on my pants is chewing up the special knit fabric on the North Face shirts, so the net effect is that my shirts are rapidly getting torn up.

Argh.

The main problem is that Japanese men’s clothing sizes don’t go much beyond the US M size. That’s right, their XL is just a bit baggier than our M.

ごろごろ and 電子辞書 (Gorogoro and Denshi Jisho)

 Japan, Japanese Language, Photography, Photos, Technology, Travel  Comments Off on ごろごろ and 電子辞書 (Gorogoro and Denshi Jisho)
Oct 292011
 

It’s Saturday, and for once it’s not raining. It’s not really sunny, but it’s not raining. I’ll take what I can get. My electronic dictionary is dying, so I’m off to Nagoya to buy a new one, among other things.

I got a bit of a late start, because I felt like lying around a little bit and just generally loafing around the apartment. There’s a good Japanese verb for this: ごろごろする (gorogorosuru). It just means to loaf around. Yep. I did that until about 2 pm or so, then headed to the station and grabbed a train.

Off to Nagoya Again

First stop was the Mermaid Cafe, to grab lunch. I wanted something simple, because for the past few weeks my stomach hasn’t been in top form. The Mermaid just does simple sandwiches and some basic pastries, and none of it is very greasy. I love their iced cocoa.

Finding a New Electronic Dictionary

Then it was off to Bic Camera, to stare at row upon row of electronic dictionaries. They have changed a lot in the 4 years since I bought my last one. Lots of color screens now, and lots of extra features, most of which I do not need. It was frustrating trying to find one dictionary that had all of the features I want, without a bunch of stuff I don’t.

The features I want are no longer available, and the dictionaries I want, I have to pay extra for. I wound up forking over 38,000 yen for the Casio Ex-Word business model. Handing over that kind of money is painful, but it has a lot of the stuff I want in it, and to be honest, I’m going to use it for at least the next four years. So I’ll pay extra to get that later.

If I think of it as a stack of 10 really useful dictionaries, and another 20 or so useful-ish dictionaries, in a form factor that’s searchable across all of them with relative ease, it’s totally worth it.

One thing it has that I really want is a working NHK accent dictionary that pronounces words through the little speaker. It’s awesome. Now I can get the pitch accent right if I’m inclined to worry about it.

I’ll review the Casio later, when I’ve had time to play with it more.

I spent a good hour or so staring, reading, poking, and buying.

When I think back to using paper dictionaries when I first started learning Japanese, there’s just no comparison. Electronic is the way to go. Even a cheap electronic dictionary is faster and easier than the best paper dictionaries.

Osu!

Done with buying at Bic, I headed back to JR Nagoya, and it was really pretty in the afternoon light:

JR Nagoya Late Afternoon Fall

After that, it was off to Osu (大須,　おおす), a big shopping district with a giant covered shopping arcade and a famous temple. It’s a lot like Osaka’s Dotonbori area, or Tokyo’s Ameyokocho, with some Akihabara mixed in.

Banshouji Doori Entrance Osu

I spent a few hours wandering around in there, just looking at shops. I stumbled across the Osu Kanon Temple at some point. It’s  pretty famous in the area. I snapped a couple of photos.

Osu Kannon Temple

Osu Kannon Temple 2

As I was leaving the temple, I lucked out. It was just turning 5 p.m., so the giant clock was striking, and a little exhibition or play of sorts was starting.

Mechanical Clock Performance--Osu

The reflections in the window were pretty bad. The IXY just couldn’t handle them.

Mechanical Clock Performance--Osu 4

Mechanical Clock Performance--Osu 5

Mechanical Clock Performance--Osu 6

Sort of like mechanical dolls, set to music. They did their dance, and everyone enjoyed it.

And then it went back to being a clock again.

Mechanical Clock Performance--Osu 7

I went back to strolling. I found a pretty big electronics store that was pretty cool. It had all kinds of stuff, most of which was cheaper than Bic. Including the electronic dictionary that I just bought. (Ouch.) Same color and everything. (OUCH!) About 10,000 yen cheaper. (Ouch, OUCH!)

On the first floor, there was a sort of a community market of electronics and random stuff, where people just set up stalls. One guy had a bunch of great old shortwave radios. Oh how I lusted after his radios, but they were hideously expensive. He knew he had good merchandise, and it was priced accordingly. There were also guys selling old vacuum tubes– you name it. It was a lot like a mini-Akihabara.

If you wander to the street just north of the covered street markets, you’ll find a few used video game stores and some manga stores and the like, if that’s your kind of thing. There are some games I want to buy, but I’ll probably wait until I’m in Tokyo to buy them, because I can probably get them cheaper there. (I will probably learn to regret this.)

There’s also a Mandarake if you like toys and other collectibles. (Who doesn’t like toys?)

After that, it was off to Hisayaodori for some book shopping.

On the way, a couple of snaps of the Nagoya TV Tower. Yes, this shot is blurry, but I LIKE it:

Nagoya Tower at Night

Less blurry but not as cool version:

Nagoya Tower at Night

I picked up a few things to read, then went back to the station.

Couchin is Japanese for “This Chicken is DELICIOUS!”

I was hungry, and it was getting late, so I decided to head back to the area around Nagoya Station. I went back to the 12th and 13th floors of Takeshimaya, because there are a ton of good restaurants there. This time, I went to a place called Torigoten, because it specializes in Nagoya Couchin, which is a special kind of chicken that’s supposed to be super delicious.

I was feeling kind of run-down anyway, so chicken anything was on my radar. All of the restaurants had huge waits. This restaurant had a relatively short wait. So I sat for only 25 minutes until I got a seat at the bar. That’s not too bad for Nagoya Station on a Saturday night.

I ordered a Couchin set meal that consisted of a really good Oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl, with some chicken broth), and some kishimen (a flat noodle that’s a specialty of the Nagoya region) in a chicken broth served with cooked chicken.

Just what I needed, because I was still feeling crummy from my cold that I had a few weeks back. Still feels like there’s a frog in my throat.

After that, I missed the 8:42 train juuuust barely, but it was okay, because that meant I could get a seat on the 8:58 train home. I got back to Okazaki at about 9:30 or so, then got home at about 9:45 or so.

Long day, but fun.

Turning Your iPhone Into a 電子辞書 (Denshi Jisho)

 Japanese Language, Technology  Comments Off on Turning Your iPhone Into a 電子辞書 (Denshi Jisho)
Oct 132009
 

So what’s a 電子辞書 (denshi jisho)?

Japanese for “electronic dictionary,”  it’s a gizmo that’s really handy if you’re learning Japanese. They’re usually full of all different kinds of dictionaries, and now they have things like a drawing pad where you can draw a kanji on the pad, and they will (usually) recognize the kanji you draw on the pad. So gone are the days of tediously looking up kanji by their respective parts.

Sounds great, right?

Well, there are downsides. For starters, 電子辞書 are hard to find outside of Japan. You have to find a way to import them, and that can wind up being very expensive. Also, they’re usually bulky and full of a lot of features you’re not going to use. And it’s one more thing to carry around.

My Sharp Papyrus has an MP3 player and a bunch of other random crap I just never use. I’ve seen others that have TV tuners. Seriously? I just want to look up some words.

My iPhone does just about all of that, only better.

My iPhone Can Haz Denshi Jisho?

If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user, you already own something that can easily be turned into a 電子辞書 if you’re willing to spend some money in the iTunes App store.

I’ve already mentioned the excellent 大辞林 (Daijirin) app, which gives you a great 国語 (kokugo— Japanese) dictionary for around $13 US.

If you need something more along the lines of a 英和/和英 dictionary (that would be an English-Japanese/Japanese English dictionary), then you can get the pretty good Genius 2 for $42, or the excellent 研究社 for $31, or the Wisdom for $24.

I love the 研究社 for its sample sentences, and its search robustness, but its interface is a little plain, and it lacks a super jump ability. You have to cut and paste words to search related words, which is kind of a pain.

There are also 四字熟語 dictionaries available as well as medical dictionaries. (The medical dictionaries are hideously expensive.)

To find Japanese dictionaries in the App Store, search under 辞書 or  辞典 (jisho or jiten… but you need to use the Japanese keyboard to generate those kanji.)

What About Drawing Kanji?

What about the kanji recognition? Does the iPhone have that?

Yes, it does. Of a sort.

Add the Chinese Traditional Handwriting keyboard under Settings> General> Keyboards> International> Chinese (Traditional). Then when you want to look up a kanji by drawing it, use the globe button to select the handwriting pad. Select until you see a big rectangular pad, and draw the kanji you’re looking for.

Draw slowly, and use proper stroke order. Then select one of the four kanji that pop up on the side. Voila. Kanji recognition– just like a $350 電子辞書, only it fits in your pocket.

Great iPhone Japanese Dictionary

 Japanese Language, Technology  Comments Off on Great iPhone Japanese Dictionary
Oct 032009
 

I was looking for a good portable dictionary for my iPhone, and I’ve found a couple of programs. One is great, one is free. If you’re going to use either one of these, make sure you install the Japanese keyboard and the Chinese Traditional “draw the kanji” keyboard on your iPhone, and take the time to learn how to use them.

For starters, there’s Kotoba!, which is a very basic free dictionary that is “based off of Jim Breen’s JMDict.” JMDict is essentially EDICT, which isn’t a professionally edited dictionary. But it is free, and it is Japanese->English. The definitions are very stripped-down, and sometimes confusing or misleading, and sometimes just wrong.

But did I mention that it’s free?

Daijirin is Awesome

If you’re beyond the beginner phase of learning Japanese, and if you’re comfortable using Japanese->Japanese dictionaries, I highly recommend the 大辞林 (Daijirin) dictionary, which is available from the iTunes app store as well for $12.99 US. It takes a little getting used to at first, but once you get comfortable with the interface, you’ll realize just how great it is.

For example: even if your Japanese isn’t as strong as you’d like, you can touch-select words in the definition you don’t understand, and it will allow you to jump to the definition. You can keep jumping until you figure everything out, then jump back to the original definition.

This is a great way to pick up a lot of new vocabulary, and gets you more proficient at using Japanese->Japanese dictionaries, which are always better at explaining Japanese words than Japanese->English dictionaries.

The best part about the 大辞林 is that you don’t have to shell out $300 for a portable electronic dictionary to get it, which is how it usually comes, and it means one less thing to carry around.

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