An amazing language tool in iphone 3GS by default. Students of Japanese and Chinese rejoice!

I have to say that I was utterly shocked to find this and very excited to see how easy it is to use. Basically, you can use the default VoiceOver function in the iPhone settings with a triple-button-push enable feature to have the phone read you anything, including paragraphs of text. As a Japanese language learner, this is an invaluable tool.

So, first go into Settings > General > Accessibility > Triple-click Home and choose "Toggle VoiceOver.

Now, change your phone operating system to whatever language you want to study. Go into Settings > General > International > Language. There, choose whichever language you would like to use. I chose Japanese.

Now, go to Safari or your email and find some Japanese text that you might have trouble reading and triple-click the home button. Press the text and read along. Triple-click home again to turn it off. Amazing.

Enjoy.

Cake

When I was in third grade, I had just moved from around Berkley, California to South Windsor, Connecticut and, for my birthday, my mom made cupcakes, carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

To a kid in third grade, carrot cake is not as exciting as, say, chocolate or lemon, even if your mom is a Berkley co-op-shoppin', bag-carrying, whole-grain-bread-only kinda lady. It might even be shocking, if you had never seen a carrot cake. I mean, you are only in the third grade after all. Which is why when no one ate by birthday cupcakes, I was traumatized.

But don't fret, for some weird reason, I still love carrot cake after all that. And so when I wanted to make a cake for my girlfriend's birthday, I thought of the old standard, not-in-Japan carrot cake.

In my search for the perfect carrot cake recipe I found a blog post by a cake maker called The Ultimate Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting! "Looks promising," I thought. And when I saw this, I knew this was the cake I would make;

“This is the best cake I’ve ever eaten!” was the reaction from my husband Graham to my latest creation. He has tasted many cakes during our 21 years together, so I pay attention when he makes a proclamation like this. I have to agree, this one is a winner!

I am not particularly good at making cakes because I have made very few, but if you have a good recipe, it really can't be that hard, can it? Welcome to Japan, where burritos have no beans and good carrot cake recipes are few and far between. If you want to make a good recipe here you have to translate from the original English. Sounds easy, until you get to all the variables like confectioners' sugar (that was hard to explain and find) or all-purpose flour (apparently, all-purpose flour is half way between the two grades of flour in Japan. Try searching for that explanation in Japanese!). Not to mention finding the ingredients like clove and nutmeg.

How to use a Japanese Mac keyboard in Windows

This took me a while to figure out, but I finally got it.

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Keyboard > Hardware

2. Choose your keyboard.

3. Press properties > Driver > Update Driver...

4. When the Hardware update Wizard comes up choose "Install from a specific location (Advanced)" and click next.

5. Choose "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install." Then hit next.

6. Uncheck the box for "Show compatable hardware."

7. On the left choose "Fujitsu" and then on the right choose "Fujitsu 109 Japanese USB Keyboard" and click next.

8. A dialouge will come up asking if you really want to do it. Click yes.

9. Restart the computer.

You should be finished with the basic set up then.

One more thing...

The mac keyboard has the 英数 and かな keys to the left and right of the space bar. We can link these to English and Japanese respectively.

I am assuming you already have Japanese input and English input enabled. You will see a blue square in the task bar with either EN or JA. Click it. It should have both. If so, let's continue. If not, you need to find a tutorial on how to enable Japanese language support and then come back here. For those of you who will continue...

1. Click on the Language Bar in the task bar.

2. Click Settings.

3. A Text Services and Input Languages window will come up. Click "Key Settings..."

4. It says "Switch to English (United States).To the right of it it should say "Ctrl+Shift+0". If it does not click "Change Key Sequence..." and make it that (Ctrl+Shift+0)

5. It says "Switch to Japanese". To the right of it it should say "Ctrl+Shift+1". If it does not click "Change Key Sequence..." and make it that (Ctrl+Shift+1)

6. Now download the program Autohotkey and install it. http://www.autohotkey.com/ (When you install it will ask you if you want sample scripts. Click yes.)

7. After you have installed go to Start > All Programs > Autohotkey and click Autohotkey.

8. After you click itYou will see a green and white H in the task bar.

9. Right click it and click "Edit this script".

10. In the script add this under where it says "return".

LWin::Ctrl

SC07B:: Send ^+0

SC070:: Send ^+1

The first line makes the left Windows key into Contol. This will make it like the Command key on Macs. I mainly use OSX so I like having this key switched. If you plan on mainly using Windows delete the first line.

The next two lines map the keys to the left and right of the space bar to the languages. Left is English and right is Japanese.

11. Save and close the file.

12. Right click the green and white H and click "Reload This Script".

Everything should work now. We just want to make sure that Autohotkey starts when we start the computer.

1. Go to Start > All Programs > Autohotkey

2. Right click the Autohotkey program and choose "Create Shortcut". You will see the shortcut below there.

3. Drag the shortcut into the Startup folder under All Programs (just above where you are now).

Ok. That's it. Enjoy.

iDic: The Best Japanese Dictionary for the iPhone Ever! Well... if you know how to set it up.

Ok, if you want to learn Japanese, it is going to take a lot of effort, and the most important thing is a good dictionary. This dictionary is as good as it gets. It is a bit of a process to set up, but you can do it and it will all pay off in the long run. I really want to stress that this dictionary will help you more than you can imagine, but you need to be paitent to set it up and learn how it works. There are many Japanese dictionaries for the iPhone and they all leave something to be desired. At first they may seem handy, but the more you study you will see why they don't work for you. I am not going to get into why each specific one is bad. You are just going to have to trust me.

Why is this dictionary the best? Well, it is really a collection of several dictionaries that are all instantly accessed with one search and the dictionary has taken out all the repetitive steps that add up when you are doing hardcore studying.

Where to start? The dictionary is called iDic and it is in the iTunes app store for 600 yen (about 5 dollars). Hold on. Before you go download it, read the rest of this post.

The "dictionary" is actually a dictionary reader. It reads dictionary files, specifically, EPWING dictionary files. This is an old business standard or something that is still around. The good thing about it is that you can get dictionary readers for EPWING files for almost any kind of computer or device, so you can have the same dictionaries on your desktop or whatnot.

Just to give you an overview of what we will do. We are going to download all the dictionaries we need. Install iDic. Transfer the dictionaries to the iPhone. Set up a dictionary group so the dictionaries are in the correct order. Enable the Japanese Kana keyboard, the Traditional Chinese pad and Simplified Chinese pad, so you can write Kanji on your phone with your hand. Ok?

First an explanation of the dictionaries:

1. Kanjidic (with stroke order): Kanjidic is a Kanji dictionary. Kanji is Chinese characters. This is a special version of Kanjidic that shows stroke order.
2. Edict: Edict is a Japanese to English and English to Japanese dictionary with simple explanations for non-native speakers.
3. Enamdict: This is a name dictionary. People and places. It will save your life and the lack of it in other dictionaries is a big reason why they are not very helpful.
4. jp_examples: This is a supplemental dictionary to Edict. Edict gives one word explanations. This dictionary gives example sentences for all the words in Edict.
5. Eijiro: The Electronic Dictionary Project. This is an often updated, broad dictionary with slang and new words which is good for showing usage. I use this when I write letters to people to look up phrases like "On the other hand."

One point about the dictionaries is that it is very beneficial to have them in this order in iDic. Take these examples:

• If you search a kanji compound like 菜食 or something, you will get hits for Edict (simple) and then jp_examples (detailed) and then Ejiro (really detailed) in order. Since it is not only one kanji, Kanjidic will be skipped and it is not a name so Enamdict will be skipped too. So, you only get the hits you want.
• Say you want to search 書かれた. This is a conjugated passive verb so it is complicated and will not come up if you type it all in, but if you cut it back to the first kanji 書, you will get 1. Kanjidic (with all the readings and stroke order) 2. Edict (with basic words) 3. Enamdict (if it is in names) 4. jp_examples (some detail) and 5. Ejiro (for more detail)

Basically, you can get almost everything you need from one search in almost any situation. Ok, let's put this thing together.

1. First install iDic from the iTunes store.

2. Download the dictionaries.

These dictionaries (except Eijiro) are the intellectual property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, under the fearless leadership of Prof. Jim Breen, at Monash University in Australia (copyright and license terms). Also, thank you to the dude who put the stroke orders in Kanjidic. I could not find who it was, but that is also from Jim Breen originally.

1. Download Kanjidic here. http://www.japaneselanguagetools.com/docs/Kanjidic.html

2-4. All these dictionaries are on Jim Breen's page.
http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/00INDEX.html

edict_en.fpw.tar.gz (24967448 bytes) EDICT file converted to EPWING format by Hannes Loeffler - http://www.hloeffler.info/zaurus/. (Nov 2008)

enamdict.fpw.tar.gz (38731740 bytes) The file in EPWING format (from Hannes Loeffler - http://www.hloeffler.info/zaurus/) (March 2007)

jp_examples.fpw.tar.gz (44618204 bytes) The examples in EPWING format (from Hannes Loeffler - http://www.hloeffler.info/zaurus/) (March 2007)

5. Eijiro costs money so you need to buy it and convert it to EPWING. If you are an upper level user you need it. You can try www.alc.co.jp to test it out. This is directions to converting http://www.japaneselanguagetools.com/docs/Eijiro_to_EPWING.html

3. Import the dictionaries: Open iDic and go into "Pref." Tap "Load Dictionaries." Follow the directions on the page (use Filezilla to connect and transfer the files). It is very important that after you unzip the downloaded dictionaries that you transfer the folder that comes out as is. If you change the folder hierarchy they will not work. To clarify, before transfer, unzip the downloaded zip files. Transfer the folder that comes out of each zip file. (For Jailbroken iPhones only: you can also transfer the files by putting them in /private/var/mobile/Media/Photos/iDic/ with DiskAid, Funbox or over SSH.)

4. Put the dictionaries in order:

1. Click done.
2. Tap the book icon on the bottom right.
3. Tap "edit."
4. Tap "New Dictionary Set."
5. Change the name to "Japanese" (or whatever you want).
6. Tap "Edit."
7. Tap the blue arrow next to "Japanese."
8. Tap "Edit."
9. Tap "Add a dictionary."
10. Add the dictionaries in the correct order by repeating 9 and choosing the dictionaries:

• Kanjidic
• EDICT
• 名辞典 (Enamdict)
• 例文 (ex_japanese)
• 英辞郎 (Eijiro)

Now tap "Done" and then on "Japanese"

5. Important setting in iDic: From the home in iDic tap "Pref." First, Turn "Keep keyboard" on. This will save you so much time when you want a word fast or you are doing a lot of searching. Each little step adds up. Second, this is personal preference, but I hate the extra step of deleting a word from the search box after I have already found it. If you put "Erase last text" on you won't have this problem. Although, if you want to alter a search you will have to reenter it. That can be annoying but I find that happens rarely for me. I usually get what I am looking for on the first shot.

6. Important settings in the iPhone:

1. Push the home button.
2. Tap "Settings."
3. Tap "General."
4. Tap "Keyboard."
5. Tap "International Keyboard."
6. Tap "Japanese."
7. Turn "Kana" on and make sure QWERTY is off.*(see below)
8. Tap "Keyboards."
9. Tap "Chinese (Simplified)"
10. Tap "Handwriting."
11. Tap "Keyboards."
12. Tap "Chinese (Traditional)
13. Tap "Handwriting."
14. Hit the home button.

* I say to turn on Kana and QWERTY off because for Japanese the QWERTY keyboard on the iPhone is not good. The English QWERTY keyboard on the iPhone corrects your mistakes if you mis-hit a key. The Japanese one does not do that so you will be correcting many mistakes. Also, Japanese is a hard language and this is a serious dictionary so, if you are going to use it you must know hiragana well. The Kana keyboard will help with that. Not to mention that it has a up, down, left, right sliding feature which makes it really efficient. All the "A" sounds are a tap. All the "i" sounds are a slide left. All the "u" sounds are a slide up. All the "e" sounds are a slide right. And all the "o" sounds are a slide down. Try it out and see.


Now about the Chinese handwriting keyboards, there is no Japanese handwriting keyboard, which sucks. I hope there will be one someday, but for now we are stuck with the Chinese ones. Japanese is made of traditional Chinese characters, simplified Chinese characters and native Japanese "Kanji." Most of them are traditional, so use the traditional keyboard. If you can't find it, switch to the simplified keyboard. If you still can't find it it is Japanese and you need to look it up in another dictionary. The iTunes store app "Wa" has a standard stroke order method dictionary in it if you need to look up a Japanese Kanji that you can't write in with the Chinese pads. I recommend that if you think you might know a Kanji try to look it up by phonetics (if you can remember) using the Kana keyboard. This trying to remember a Kanji will make you much better.


7. Extra info: If you have jailbroken your iPhone you can use the cydia app Appflow to set this dictionary to a double tap of the home button. If you study a lot or live in Japan this is handy. Having a dictionary always handy can make you better quicker.

The End: If you have made it this far, I commend you. I imagine you will become a great Japanese speaker, reader and writer. It is a long journey, but it is interesting as hell. Enjoy it. If you need any help ,send me a message and I will do what I can.

Here is some other stuff you can use with iDic (or any EPWING reader).

Toms/トムス

The other day, I was going through my back log of Treehugger podcasts (iTunes) and, I heard one about this company called Toms. Toms makes shoes. Apparently, the guy who made the company went to Argentina on vacation and was surprised to see so many children without shoes. He wanted to make a non-profit to give kids shoes, but he had no experience with non-profits, so he decided to make a company, which, for every pair of shoes bought, gives another pair to children that doesn't have shoes.

A lot of people thought he was crazy, but it is working well. They have given shoes to 10,000 kids in Argentina and 50,000 kids in South Africa. Apparently, hipsters in the states are really into them too. Since I am not up on everything that is going on there, all this might not be new to you. They have vegan shoes too in case you were wondering. I just ordered mine. Order some. Do it for the kids ;)

---------------------------------------------

この間、僕の大好きなTreehuggerのpodcast (iTunes)を聞いてて、すごく面白い話があった。ある男の人が休みでアルヘンティナに行った。そこで、非営利団体で働いてる知り合いとどっかに遊びに行った。その地方の子供たちはほとんど靴を履いてなくて、彼はそれを見て、すごくビックリした。靴がなくてたくさんの大変な病気にかかってしまうらしくて、彼は子供たちに靴を上げる非営利団体を作ろうと考えた。でも、今までに非営利団体を作った経験がなく、その代わりに、会社を作った経験は豊富だったので、会社として立ち上げることにした。会社はTomsという。

その会社の子供たちに靴を上げる方法は「one for one」と言う方法た。「one for one」っていうのは、お客さんが靴を買うとそのお金で、お客さんの靴と子供の靴を作る。彼がこの方法を使うと言った時、みんなに「うまく行かない」と言われてたけど、実はすごくうまく行ってるらしい。しかも、靴が、子供のとお客さんのとで5000円しかかからない。

僕はこの間自分のを注文した。みんな、子供のためにも買ってくれない？メチャおしゃれだし。

Intervals

When I used to live in Olympia and Kobe, I played soccer about 3 times a week. Then, when I moved to Kyoto, I couldn't find any pick up games so I started running a little. I always felt like I didn't know what to do; How long should I run? How fast?

That all changed when I got the Nike+ thing that attaches to the ipod nano. It is really quite amazing. You can set time, distance, or calorie goals, and records your progress so you can look back and see how you are doing. It is like having a coach.

Today, while reading my favorite sites with my Google Reader, I came across a post on interval workouts. In this study, over 15 weeks, people who did interval work outs lost 3 times the fat running 20 minutes sessions vs. people who ran steady 40 minutes sessions. I like running, but running 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes with 3 times the result. I'm for that.

As I was looking for information about how to do interval workouts, I came across this good article, which tells you how to break it down. I also ran across this, which is a mix that Nike and Serena Willams made for interval running. She coaches you while you run and the songs match the speed of the workout. I bought it, the first thing I ever have bought on itunes.

That gave me the idea that I could just make a playlist and have the changes for the workout be indicated by the song lengths and the tempo of the songs (I found this Windows script which does something similar). Then I got an even better idea to do it in Garage Band and add in coaching and make it one file. So, here is the file I made. You don't need Nike+ to use it. You can just download it and listen to it in your iPod.

This is the basic layout it follows (from Men's Heath) :

Interval Variation I: Standard

The following is a typical interval workout. You alternate the same period of low intensity with the same period of higher intensity.
1. 3 - 5 minutes warmup (light jog, low intensity, gradually increasing at the end of the warmup period)
2. 1 minute moderate or high intensity followed by 1 minute low intensity (repeat 6 - 8 times)
3. 3 - 5 minutes cooldown (light jog, low intensity, gradually decreasing by the end of the cooldown period)
Hope you like it.

A web browser for Japanese people learning English

I have a lot of friends who study English, and I am always recommending various tools to study, so I thought I would make it easy and put the tools together in one portable browser. This is a seriously bad ass browser, so recommend it to all your Japanese speaking friends who are learning English. They will love you forever.

I took a web browser and many extensions and put them in one package. You can download the finished product, but it is good to know how to use the different extensions I added, and to know the steps I went through, so you can do it if you need to. The authors of these extensions and the browser put hours and hours of work into them. Please support them. If these tools were not Open Source, I could not put this together and share it with you, so please support Open Source software.

The Browser

1. Portable Firefox for bringing your own customized browser where ever you go.
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

First, we need Firefox. This is the main part. Everything else we will use depends on this. Firefox is a web browser, like Internet Explorer, but it is better and, since it is Open Source, it can be changed and added to. Firefox is the best browser ever made because of all the extensions that can be added to it. If you do not know what a Firefox extension is please read about it here. Besides the sites, everything on this page are Firefox extensions.

I used Portable Firefox because I can add extensions to it, and it has the benefit of being able to put it on a usb key or in an ipod.

The core extensions and sites: This section is everything you need for the browser. They are included in the package I made. The other ones not in this section are included in the package, but they are not necessary for study. They just add some features that make Firefox a better browser.

2. Change Portable Firefox to Japanese with Locale Switcher
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/hatae/e/ba5e002dd3a92a74296488878b82810b

This is a page that shows you how to change Portable Firefox to Japanese. It involves installing an extension that allows you to localize the browser and then installing the Japanese localization file. This is good if your Japanese friend can't use the browser easily in English.

3. Google toolbar for mouse-over, instant, single word translation to Japanese
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/ja/

Not only is this a great tool for browsing the Internet, but it has the great Mouse Over Translation function, which allows us to hover our mouse over any English word and get a little tiny window with the Japanese meaning. I love this one because no matter how much people listen to me babble about this and still don't care, when they see this in action, their eyes light up with amazement. Even if you do not give your Japanese friend this browser, tell them about Google Toolbar.

4. Dictionary Tooltip for double-click, instant, detailed translations to Japanese and English with Eijiro えいじろ (www.alc.co.jp)
http://bushwhacker.seesaa.net/article/12469028.html

This is a great tool and uses a great dictionary, but it can be a little temperamental. Double click on the word and a box will pop up. It is bigger than the Google Mouse Over Translation one and is easy to use. This dictionary is great if you want to get a detailed explanation of the word or want to know how to use it. I often use this when I write in Japanese to look up how to say phrases (more than one word) like "the other day" or "on the contrary." Eijiro is constantly updated and has just about any word. You can buy a CD version with software for Mac, Linux, and Windows at any bookstore in Japan.

5. Japanize for changing sites settings from English to Japanese.
http://japanize.31tools.com/

This is an extension that takes English pages such as Facebook and changes most, if not all, of the settings into English. This makes it really easy for Japanese people to navigate English sites and focus on spending study time on the content of the site. I am not exactly sure how it works. It is quite amazing.

Sites: I highly, highly recommend these sites.

6. Gmail for multilingual emailing and chatting without mojibake (文字化け）
http://www.gmail.com
Gmail uses Unicode, a computer language that can display most languages, so there is almost no mojibake. Mojibake is when Japanese gets misinterpreted by the browser and comes out at mangled, unreadable text. Gmail is great because you can read Korean, French, and Japanese all on the same page. Plus it is a great with email and has a built in chat program, which is also good for learning English. Hotmail can use multiple languages, but you must change the settings for the whole account to read a specific language. One thing to keep in mind is that Japanese cell phones do not display Unicode so you must make sure that the setting "Use default text encoding for outgoing messages" is checked, which it should be from the beginning, but it is just good to know.

7. Facebook for communicating and learning about about friends' interests
http://www.facebook.com/
This is great site for learners of English. Say you make a friend and you like some music they showed you, you can go to their profile and read about what bands they like. This is also great for learning about books or movies or learning about your friends' friends. Myspace is also like this, but Facebook has applications that can add additional functionality, kind of like Firefox. Learning how to control it though can be a difficult task, even for English speakers, although Japanize makes it easier. I use Mixi.jp, a Japanese social networking site, in a similar way.

8. Mixi.jp for communicating learning about about friends' interests in a Japanese-style setting
http://mixi.jp/
There are many English groups and forums in Mixi, and there are many people who speak English, so it is an easy way to start making friends and learn about foreigners without feeling overwhelmed by Facebook. One problem is that people do not normally post their photos in their profile so it is hard to get connected to your friends sometimes.

Auxilary extensions: these are not needed but make for an easier browsing experience. I have included them.

Tab Mix Plus for tab management
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122
This has many features but the best one displays the tab last viewed after you close a tab. It makes for easy flow when opening and closing many tabs. I added this one into the package to save you some headaches.

Drag and DropZone Searching for easy searching.
http://www.captaincaveman.nl/firefox-extensions-drag-and-dropzone-searching.aspx

The Firefox search bar can has many pre-made search engine plug-ins (http://mycroft.mozdev.org/ ). It is handy because, if you use a certain search engine a lot, you can set it to that. The not-so-good part of it is that you have to change the icon to change the search engine. Drag and Drop Zone Searching solves that by changing the web page window to drop-able zones for each search engine. Select the word you want and drag it any direction and drop it in the square for the search engine you want to use. I use this a lot because I use Google Japan and Google.com both for different uses. Think about the searching the word "house." If you search it on Google.com, you will probably get real estate listings. If you search it on Google Japan you might get a translation of the word. Having a quick access to both is really handy. You can set up to 64 zones and choose the location. I set up a few for you. Feel free to add more.

Foxclocks is a clock that you can add many timezones to
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1117
If your friend is an English learner chances are they have lived abroad or have friends that they communicate with in other countries. Foxclocks makes it easy to set up different timezones, so you can easily know what time is it all over the world.
This is very good if you live in another country and make calls home.

Converter
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2286

This extension converts any kind of measurements or temperatures in a page to and from metric for the all the silly countries that don't use it. It shows you the math in the page so not only do you understand, but you can learn how to do it yourself. Since I am from one of those silly countries, this really helps with recipes, a real life saver.


Alternative extensions: these are not included, but, if you find that you do not like one of the extensions or one of them does not work, you can use these instead.

Fast Look Up ALC as an alternative to Dictionary Tooltip
http://lowreal.net/blog/2006/12/03/1
Since Dictionary Tool Tip does not work correctly all the time you can use this if you want. The downside is that it only goes from English to Japanese. This is a Greasemonkey (Firefox extension) script, so you must install Greasemonkey before this for it to work.
Greasemonkey for manipulating webpages with Java script https://addons.mozilla.org/ja/firefox/addon/748

Well, I hope this helps your Japanese friends or you with English. You can download the pre-packaged portable browser for Windows here. If you want it in your own pre-existing version of Firefox or on a Mac or Linux machine, just go through the steps and add what you want. I will make one for Japanese learners soon.