English->Japanese Text Translator Site/Program?

[ShadowTiger]

Hm. I've always wondered. Is there a website which will translate English text into Japanese text? Not into Kanji though. Every time I try, it just ends up looking like this: ||||||||?||||| or ???????? ... It's kinda annoying. :sweat:

Anyone ever seen something like this? I could definitely use a pointer in the right direction. :shrug: Thanks. :)


EDIT: Oh, that's right. I forgot to tell you. I DID download a large set of Japanese fonts. The thing is, either they're not taking effect, or they're not recognized. They're in my fonts folder, of course, as usual. So that's alright. I'm just trying to figure out why they're not being used as necessary. :odd2: ... Maybe I've just download the wrong file or something. Meh. I suppose anything's possible nowadays.

[me2]

Have you tried babelfish? It's on AltaVista.

EDIT: Oh. I see what you mean now. well, I'll just copy my friend's lesson on Katakana here.


Katakana
What is katakana? Katakana is the slashy Japanese alphabet used to write words from foreign origin (as opposed to Hiragana, the alphabet used to write words of Japanese origin). Now usually this means they use it for English-based words, but you get the occasional oddball, like pan = bread (Spanish), ankeito = questionnaire (French), arubaito = part-time job (German) etc. etc. etc. In Pop'n Music, they're all of English origin, so don't worry.



Now. If they're all from English origin, all you need to learn is how to read the alphabet, right? Not hard at all. Take a look at this page first:
http://www.kids-japan.com/katatit.htm (http://www.kids-japan.com/katatit.htm)
Gives you a view of the stuff from the eyes of a fifth-grader. ^_^ Continue on to the charts at the bottom:
http://www.kids-japan.com/kata-chart.htm (http://www.kids-japan.com/kata-chart.htm)
http://www.kids-japan.com/kata-chart2.htm (http://www.kids-japan.com/kata-chart2.htm)



Now that should be fairly self-explanatory. Japanese is a syllabic language, so instead of having individual letters for the consonants and vowels separately, they just have characters for the syllables - "ka", "tsu", "yo", etc. So all you have to learn is those characters, right? Well, to put it more easily into chart form, they put the consonant on the left side, and the vowel on the top. So if you wanted to see how to write "ki", go to "K" on the left and "I" on the top, and where they intersect, you'll see: http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-kI.gif - Ki. There's only four exceptions on this chart; "tu" is "tsu", "si" is "shi", and "ti" is "chi". Don't ask me why. Also the one down in the left corner is "n".




The second page is a little confusing, but simple once you learn why it is. All the unvoiced consonants on the first page ("k", "h", "s", "t", etc. - the ones you don't use your voice for) are brought up on the second page - but they have tenten - a little " - on them. The tenten just means you add voice to that consonant. So "k" becomes "g", "s" becomes "z", etc. Not too hard, right? The only weird ones are where "h" is involved - for some reason, the Japanese think that "b" and "p" are related to "h", so add tenten to "h" to get "b", and add maru (a little circle) to "h" to get "p". That's all. Now, the ones below those are equally easy to understand. You can do a lot with "ya", "yu" and "yo" - namely, if you make them little and put them in front of a kana in the "I" row, the "I" and the "Y" are dropped, and you just get the combination of the two - so http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-zyU.gif = "ji" + "yu" = "ju". Simple. However, that's only on the "shi", "chi" and "ji" - where the Japanese don't have a kana line for "shu", "cho", "ja", etc. In the rest of the cases, the "y" isn't dropped, so http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-kyA.gif = "ki" + "ya" = "kya". Not too hard once you know what you're looking at. (The bottom of the second chart covers the small "tsu" clause decently.)




And the last three things that are quick to understand are:
- the Japanese "r" sound. It's about halfway in between an "r" and an "l" - say "butter" a few times. The little flip of your tongue you use to say the "tt" in that - now use that exact same flip and say "li", "ro", "ru", "la" - except now the "l" and "r" in those syllables are pronounced the exact same. This is where Engrish comes from - the Japanese have a hard time remembering when to say "r" and when to say "l" cause it's all the same to them.
- long vowels. If you want to extend a vowel, just put "-" after the kana. Then you pronounce the vowel for twice as long.
- vowel pronunciation. Latin vowels, always sound the same. a = "ah", i = "ee", u = "oo", e = "eh", o = "oh". If there's an "i"-syllable or an "u"-syllable before an unvoiced consonant or at the end of the word, just don't pronounce the vowel, only the consonant.




So let's try this out. The toughest part will be learning the 46 different kana at first, but once you've learned them, you'll be able to spot what you're looking for on Konami's Pop'n site, cause Pop'n loves English and so katakana's all over the place.



Let's first take a look at some character names:
http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-U.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-O.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-wO.gif = u + o + wo = Uowo. http://hals.press.ne.jp/popn/bbs/b_image/ico_uowo.gif
http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-yU.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-rI.gif = yu + ri = Yuli. http://hals.press.ne.jp/popn/bbs/b_image/ico_yuli.gif
http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-A.gifhttp://www.tc.umn.edu/~tren0034/K-tUsmall.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-shU.gif = a + (small tsu) + shi + yu = a + s + shu = Ash. http://hals.press.ne.jp/popn/bbs/b_image/ico_ash.gif
http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-sU.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-mA.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-I.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-rU.gif = su + ma + i + ru = Smile. http://hals.press.ne.jp/popn/bbs/b_image/ico_smile.gif



Now let's try a few song names.
http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-O.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-kI.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-nA.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-wA.gif = o + ki + na + wa = Okinawa.
http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-hO.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-rA.gifhttp://www.tc.umn.edu/~tren0034/K-long.gif = ho + ra + - = ho + ra + a = horaa = Horror.
http://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-bI.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-zyU.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-A.gifhttp://www.kids-japan.com/icons/K-rU.gif = bi + ji + yu + a + ru = bi + ju + a + ru = bijuaru = Visual.

[ShadowTiger]

Hm. Alarmingly useful, me2. Thank you so much. :) Really, thanks! :kawaii: ... I wonder what I can do with this. I'll work some things out. Thanks. ;) very much.

[Tsukuru]

Have you tried getting the Japanase IME (input method editor) from the Windows website?

If you're using Windows 9x: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/recommended/ime/install.mspx
If you're using XP: http://greggman.com/japan/xp-ime/xp-ime.htm
If you're not using Windows: Ignore this post

It lets you enter the romaji and it will convert your word into hiragana or katakana when you hit the space bar. The XP version is pretty spiffy too, as it sits right next to the notification area and the documentation is in English ;)

[ShadowTiger]

Thanks Tsukuru. :) .. But please note, that I'm not referring to the handwritten Kanji, or the related material. I'm talking about spoken Japanese, in which the words that come out of their mouths, would be typed in English, based on how they sound coming out of their mouths. Obviously you can't really say "|||?||||||" at all. :shrug: