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Japanisation FAQ for computers running Western Windows [FAQ]
============================================================
This FAQ is primarily concerned with detailing what is available, not
with how to actually operate the software. Explaining how to use the
software is the responsibility of the various software vendors.
Specifically, this FAQ currently covers 32-bit Windows-based systems
(95, 98, NT) with English as the main language. Some of the information
may be applicable to other versions or language editions of Windows.
Archive site: http://www.rhialto.co.uk/jwinfaq/jwinfaq.txt
Last Revision: 2nd January 1900
Posting Frequency: max once per month
Posted to: sci.lang.japan
CC to: soc.culture.japan.moderated
soc.culture.japan
---
Contents
1 Windows
1.1 Displaying Japanese text
1.1.1 Japanese Language Operating System
1.1.1.1 Win98/J IME98 Bugs
1.1.1.2 Using Western Software in Japanese Windows
1.1.2 NJWIN
1.1.3 Unionway
1.1.4 Mview
1.1.5 Twinbridge
1.1.6 MSIE Japanese Extensions
1.1.7 MS Office Extensions
1.1.8 Basistech's Read japanese
1.2 Typing Japanese Text - Word Processors
1.2.1 JWP and JWPce
1.2.2 NJSTAR
1.2.3 Entering Japanese text into MSword 95/E and MSword 97/E
1.2.4 Neocor J-Text
1.2.5 MS Office 2000
1.2.6 Word perfect 2000
1.3 Typing Japanese Text - Front End Processors
1.3.1 MSIE IME
1.3.1.1 MS IME - Windows 98 Issues
1.3.1.2 MS IME - version 5x
1.3.2 Unionway
1.3.3 Kanjikit
1.3.4 NJCOM
1.4 Japanese TrueType Fonts
1.4.1 MS Mincho
1.4.2 MS Gothic
1.4.3 UWJMG3 (SJS)
1.4.4 Bitstream Cyberbit
1.4.5 kanji112.zip
1.4.6 Alis MMincho-Light
1.5 Displaying Japanese text within specific web browsers.
1.5.1 MSIE 3, 4 & 5
1.5.2 Netscape 2
1.5.3 Netscape 3
1.5.4 Netscape 4
1.5.5 Tabibito
1.5.6 Opera
1.5.7 Lynx for DOS
1.5.8 Tango
1.6 Software workarounds
1.6.1 Wrong country version workaround
1.7 Educational software
1.7.1 Jverb
1.7.2 Transparent.com
1.7.3 Kanjicard v1.7
1.7.4 Kanjidic
1.7.5 Itaiji-ten
2.0 Other computer platforms
2.1 Apple Macintosh
8.0 Web Links
8.1 Software producing companies
8.2 Software archives
8.3 Japanese-capable free Email servers
8.4 Websites for learning Japanese
8.4.1 Lessons
8.4.2 Dictionaries
8.4.3 Other
9.0 Boring bit
9.0.1 Legal Disclaimer
9.0.2 Copyright notice
9.0.3 Contact information
9.0.4 Concerning URLs
---
1.0.0 Windows
The following URLs have more information on Japanising a computer.
They also contains some information on supporting Chinese and Korean
on English operating systems (the issues involved in supporting those
languages are very similar).
http://www.tjp.washington.edu/computing/japanese/guidetojapanesecomputing.ht
ml
http://www.panix.com/~tn/j-pc-os.html [dead link]
1.1 Displaying Japanese Text
1.1.1 Japanese language operating system
If your budget stretches this far, you may want to buy a Japanese
language version of Windows 9x. It contains all the options present
within the English Windows 9x. However, all the help files and
documentation are written in Japanese. It also contains an IME
functionally superior to that included within the MSIE/en Japanese IME
add-on. Japanese Windows 98 is available now. The following companies
outside Japan will sell Japanese Windows, and it is possible to contact
Microsoft for a list of resellers who can supply you with Japanese
language Windows. The cheapest way to obtain a legal copy is to persuade
a friend in Japan to buy and send a copy to you.
Windows 2000 is expected to have integral support for every language
currently supported by any version of Windows. In theory, that should
make this FAQ obsolete. The English/USA version is due to be released
on my birthday (17th Feb 2000). Thanks Bill!
All other sections of this document currently assume you will be
running some version of 32-bit windows (Windows 95, 98, NT 3.51, NT 4).
PC-Japan http://www.pc-japan.com (New Jersey, USA)
141 Kinderkamack Road
Park Ridge, NJ 07656
tel: 1-888-PC JAPAN (725-2726)
E-mail: sales@pc-japan.com
Arabiaware http://www.arabiaware.com (Holland, EU)
Amsterdamsestraatweg 81
3513 AB Utrecht
The Netherlands
tel: (31)30 2 322 093 or (31)30 2 334 061
fax: (31)30 2 34 34 61
E-mail: aw@knoware.nl
1.1.1.1 Win98/J IME98 Bugs
A patch has been released to fix an apparent bug in this application.
Information on this is available from:
<http://www.microsoft.com/japan/office/officefreestuff/ime/ime98sr1/>
The patch itself can be downloaded from:
<http://download.jp.microsoft.com/office/OfficeFreeStuff/ime/ime98sr1.exe>
Also, if you installed Windows98/J over a different language version of
Windows and had the Japanese IME for IE installed, this can cause the
system to crash when using the Windows 98 IME. Uninstalling the MSIE
IME should fix this problem.
1.1.1.2 Using Western Software in Japanese Windows
In general, there is very little problem with using such software.
However, they may not necessarily be able to display Japanese
correctly - English MS Excel will crash if any attempt is made to
enter Japanese (MS Word works fine). Also, some programs designed with
European languages, such as French, will not function correctly as
Windows may interpret the accented characters as Japanese.
One minor problem with some English-language apps on Japanese Windows is
that some of the text in dialog boxes may display at the wrong location or
be clipped slightly short.
One important caveat is with disk management software. Do not run
English defrag, scandisk, or anti-virus software. These programs can
detect Japanese filenames as errors, and make changes based on this
assumption. Anti-virus programs may be unable to detect a virus in a
file with a Japanese filename. If you have no choice but to run English
versions of these, make sure that it will not automatically correct such
'errors', and have an undo facility ready if needed.
The following are known to work with no major problems:
MS Word 97
MS Access 97
Netscape Navigator 4
Adobe Photoshop 5
The following have unusual behaviour under Japanese Windows:
MS Office 2000 is specifically designed to take advantage of the
Japanese OS, giving equivalent functionality to the Japanese version
of Office 2000.
PageMaker 6.5 has major problems with proportionally-spaced Japanese
fonts. It also doesn't know where to put line breaks when using
Japanese fonts. However, There are some work-arounds.
Corel Draw 8 is unstable on Japanese Windows.
English MS Excel 97 will crash if kanji or upper ASCII characters are
entered within Japanese Windows. In addition, the 'solver' tool
is not available.
Netscape Navigator v4 (English version) will crash if it encounters
a web page with the barred 'H' character (HTML escape code values
Ħ and ħ).
1.1.2 NJWIN
This program will display Japanese text encoded in any format,
including Unicode! It is by far the best Japanese viewer I have
encountered, but it is shareware. Available from
<http://www.njstar.com>, based in Australia. Price is 50 USD, but a
discount is given if you also buy the company's own word processor,
both worth their price. This will display encoded text with Netscape,
Explorer, Word, Notepad, Agent news/mail reader, NoteTab text editor,
Opera web browser, and probably other programs. The shareware function
will create a nag screen every time the program is started, after the
initial 30 day trial has expired.
There are reports that NJWIN (v1.6) will not work with Word Perfect 7.
This has been tested in both Windows 95 and Windows 98.
1.1.3 Unionway
Another excellent viewer, able to use a Japanese font for a better
display if you register it. Unfortunately, it makes the spacing for
JIS encoded text look a little weird, although it is still perfectly
readable. It can be downloaded (shareware) from
<http://www.unionway.com>. It will display text in many of the programs
NJWIN will work with.
1.1.4 Mview
This is another Japanese viewer. The font is of rather poor quality,
although better quality fonts may be available for download. It will
display text within Netscape 3. It is much cheaper than the other font
viewers available.
1.1.5 Twinbridge
?
1.1.6 MSIE Japanese extensions
This is available to download from
<http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/ime/ime.htm>. It
includes the MS Gothic font, and provides a much better display for
viewing Japanese within Internet Explorer than any other solution.
Separate versions of this add-on exist for MSIE 3, 4, and 5. Once this
has been downloaded and installed, other Japanese TrueType fonts can
be used with MSIE if you have them available.
1.1.7 MS Office Japanese extensions
On the MS Office 97 CD, there is an add-on to enable MS Office to
display Japanese text. This includes a rather excellent TrueType font
called MS Mincho. This will allow MS Word to properly any word files
with the Japanese font. It won't help display text in other
applications, unfortunately. Microsoft have, VERY quietly, posted MS
Mincho on their website at
<http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/isapi/goouprem.asp?>. The file name
in question is <jpnsupp.exe>. You need to register with them to install
it, but the product id no. for MSIE will suffice for this. The file
jpnsupp.exe is also archived at the Monash FTP site. Note that even
with these extensions, certain parts of MS Word, notably WordArt, will
not support East Asian characters.
1.1.8 Basis Technology's Read Japanese
This is designed to allow you to view Japanese documents under any
language version of Windows 9x or NT. Clicking on Japanese words and
Kanji will display the pronunciation, English meaning and more
information. A demo version is available from
<http://rj.basistech.com>. The demo available for download is
crippled, but can be unlocked by registration.
1.2 Typing Japanese text - Word Processors
1.2.1 JWP & JWPce
There is only one real cheap solution... JWP, written by Stephen Chung
(additional bits by various others). The best bit about it is that it
is freeware! Look for all the files with 'jwp13' in their name. All
the install files together are just over 6 Meg total size. It is in
the form of a bunch of zip files at
<ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo>.
JWPce is a freeware word processor inspired by JWP, but the code used
has been completely re-written. It is optimised to run on the Windows
CE operating system, but should run on any 32 bit Windows operating
system. It includes some unicode support and better facilities for
running it over a network, and, like JWP on which it is based, is
downloadable from <http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html>
1.2.2 NJSTAR
This is a shareware package, and the homepage is at
<http://www.njstar.com>. This program allows much more text formatting
than JWP, but then, you pay for what you get. The dictionary lookup
does not allow multiple dictionary files to be searched simultaneously,
but it does allow searches based on a single character. The registered
version can include what is advertised as 'TrueType' fonts. However,
these are not genuine TrueType fonts, and cannot be used in other
applications. It has a 'kanji of the day' feature to help you learn
the kanji.
This program can also save files in HTML format. When it does so, it
inserts spaces between each Japanese character, to ensure that older
web browsers can word wrap the text properly.
1.2.3 Entering Japanese text into MS Word 95/E and MS Word 97/E
You will need either the MSIE Japanese IME add-on, or the NJSTAR
Japanese word processor. First, you will need to type the text within
the appropriate program, the copy and paste it into word. If you are
using NJSTAR, you must paste the text as 'unformatted text'. Once you
have pasted the text, you may need to set the font to an appropriate
Japanese font for it to display the Japanese characters properly (you
did install the MS Office Japanese extensions, didn't you?).
An alternative solution is to type the text within JWPce. JWPce can
then use cut and paste normally to MS Word. You may need to set the
clipboard export format to unicode within the options dialogue box.
1.2.4 Neocor J-Text
This is a simple (and FREE) Japanese word processor. It supports
Japanese TrueType fonts if you have any installed on your system, but
it does not come with such fonts. Also, only one Japanese font can be
used per document. The kanji lookup system within the IME is not
particularly sophisticated compared to JWP, and the dialogue window
for entering kanji by radical lookup is unique. The program can be
downloaded from <http://www.neocor.com>. The program itself has
numerous optional extras that can be downloaded from the website. It
is essentially their method for marketing their other software.
1.2.5 MS Office 2000
This, with the addition of the Japanese IME, Word 2000 provides full support
for Japanese text. However, tategaki (vertical text), requires a Japanese OS
to function correctly.
Some components of MS Office do not support Japanese text while running
on English Windows. Excel 2000 does not have such support. All parts have
full support for Japanese text when running on Japanese Windows.
Under some circumstances, particularly if an older IME was installed,
the Japanese IME may be disabled. If this happens, try uninstalling all
IME-related programs, removing any Japanese font files from the Windows
font folder, and then downloading the latest IME from the MS web site.
This URL is currently:
<http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/iebuild/ime5_win32/en/ime5_win32.htm>
The following page may also prove useful in fixing Office 2000 problems:
<http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q216/5/96.asp>
Because this program uses HTML natively, it can save files directly
into HTML format. However, the code produced has a lot of extra HTML
code designed to ensure round-trip compatibility with no loss of
information. A downloadable utility removes some of this code, but it
still cannot be considered a good HTML editor. The best approach is to
use it to edit the code directly, and take advantage of the IME and
ability to edit/save files as unicode.
1.2.6 Word perfect 2000
This program allows Japanese input, and can import files with Japanese
from MS Word. However, WP files exported to MS Word 97 will have the
Japanese garbled. This is due to their using a customised code page for
Japanese, and not an official standard.
1.3 Typing Japanese text - Front End processors
A front-end processor is a small program that intercepts the keystrokes
on your keyboard and interprets this as Japanese encoded text. The more
advanced ones will have increasingly sophisticated methods for
selecting kanji characters. This is usually achieved by comparing the
kana characters typed to an internal kanji dictionary. This is
sometimes known as an IME (Input Method Editor).
1.3.1 MSIE IME
This IME only works within MSIE 4+, MS Office, and MS Outlook Express.
It can be used either when writing an email or Usenet post, or to fill
sections of a form on a website. It is available from
<http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/iebuild/ime5_win32/en/ime5_win32.htm>.
Text written with this can be cut and pasted to any program that
recognises Unicode, such as MS Word or JWPce.
1.3.1.1 MS IME - Windows 98 Issues
An older version of the IME exists which is not compatible with
Windows 98. The version currently available (v5) should work flawlessly
within Windows 98.
1.3.1.2 MS IME - version 5.x
Microsoft released a new version of the IME for MSIE 5. This is
functionally identical to the IME in version 4, but is designed to be
compatible with a wider range of software. It should allow kana entry
in any application within the 'Office 2000' family. Note specifically
that it will not enable kana entry in older versions of MS Office
software.
1.3.2 Unionway
This will allow text entry in any program, formatted in SJIS or EUC or
JIS (?) formats. The IME is rather difficult to use, but (as far as I
know) is the only program to allow Japanese text entry in *any*
application. Within a word processor, the Japanese font may sometimes
cause word wrapping to malfunction. This is because of some complicated
technical feature that I will not pretend to understand fully. The
program can be downloaded from <http://www.unionway.com>.
1.3.3 Kanjikit 97
This program has a user interface very similar to Unionway's product.
The company's homepage is at: <http://www.pspinc.com>
1.3.4 NJCOM
Latest from Hongbo Ni's stable is NJCOM, which extends the NJWIN viewer
to include IMEs for Japanese, Chinese & Korean. Jim Breen has tried it
out with both Netscape and IE, and reports that it works fine for
Netscape, but had problems driving IE into his WWWJDIC forms (which
appeared to be due to the forms having a preset "charset=euc-jp", and
the resulting code conversions in IE/NJCOM). Apart from that,
everything was fine. The down-loadable version from www.njstar.com,
etc. is for a 30-day trial, but the licensed version is not expensive.
As of version 2.0, the program can only enter text directly as unicode
when operating in Chinese input mode. This will limit its usefulness
with MS Word and other applications which use unicode internally. Also,
the kanji lookup routines that are used, will fail to find the kanji
when entering inflected forms of verbs and adjectives. At present,
only S-JIS and EUC codes can be entered reliably when using this
program for Japanese.
1.4 Japanese TrueType fonts
Note: I am mainly listing fonts that are compatible with Unicode. There
exist a number of fonts that claim to be Japanese, but are essentially
'dingbats' fonts. While Japanese documents could be created in a word
processor using those fonts, the resulting text would be gibberish
unless the person at the other end has the exact same font on their
computer. If anyone knows of other Japanese TrueType fonts on the web,
please email me. Bear in mind when downloading that Japanese fonts are
huge - the smallest is about 2 megabytes.
Japanese windows includes 2 Japanese fonts, named MS Mincho and MS
Gothic (but written in kana). These fonts from the Japanese version
of windows use the *.ttc format, which is not recognised by Western
versions of Windows. Normal *.ttf Truetype fonts are fully compatible
with both Japanese and Western versions of Windows, and the *.ttf files
available to download from Microsoft are effectively identical to their
Japanese equivalents.
1.4.1 MS Mincho
This is part of the MS Office 97 extensions, and can be found on the CD
with that product.
<http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/isapi/goouprem.asp?> is the current
download URL. The file jpnsupp.exe is also archived at the Monash FTP
site. This font is fully compatible with all versions of Windows.
1.4.2 MS Gothic
This is part of the MSIE Japanese extensions, and can be installed from
<http://www.microsoft.com/ie> if you have MSIE 3 or MSIE 4. This font
is fully compatible with all versions of Windows.
1.4.3 UWJMG3 (SJIS)
This is Unionway's Japanese font. It is shareware and can be downloaded
from <http://www.unionway.com>. This font is fully compatible with
all versions of Windows.
1.4.4 Bitstream Cyberbit
Bitstream is no longer offering this font as a free download. It is
currently available from Netscape at the URL below. This file is over
6 Mb in length, but the font effectively displays many different
scripts. This font is fully compatible with all English versions
of Windows. Note that because of the large file size, computers
with low amounts of RAM memory may have problems with this font.
<ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/extras/fonts/windows/>
1.4.5 kanji112.zip
kanji112.zip is a freely distributable True-Type Font set of 2500
kanji. The file is archived at the following locations. It should
be bourne in mind that this is not a true unicode-compatible
font, and documents created using this font are unlikely to be
readable without this precise font.
ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/kanji112.zip
http://www.dtcc.edu/~berlin/font/japanese.htm
1.4.6 Alis MMincho-Light
This font is part of the Japanese add-on support for the web browser
Tango, available to download from <www.alis.com>. The font is a
slightly harder to read than MS Mincho, but is still perfectly
functional.
1.5 Displaying Japanese text within specific web browsers
1.5.1 MSIE 3, 4 & 5
The most sensible solution is to download the Japanese extensions from
the Microsoft website at <http://www.microsoft.com/ie>. It is free, and
provides the best quality of all the solutions that work. NJWIN and
Unionway will also display Japanese text within these programs.
With MSIE 5, there is an option to leave downloading language support
for any language until the first time you encounter a particular
language. It may still be worth downloading support for those languages
you expect to use at the same time you install the application itself.
Conversely, there seems to be little point in ever downloading support
for a language you do not understand, no matter how many times MSIE
encounters it.
Note that a language-specific version exists for Windows/jp, and
support or add-on modules for MSIE-4/jp should be downloaded from:
<http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie_intl/ja/ie40/download/rtw/x86/ja/downlo
ad/addon95.htm>
The home page for MSIE/jp is at:
<http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie_intl/ja/default.htm>
1.5.2 NN 2
This version of netscape's browser requires some form of third party
support to display Japanese.
1.5.3 NN 3
NJWIN will provide high quality results within this web browser.
Netscape also supports Japanese TrueType fonts, albeit in a convoluted
manner. The following method is taken from
<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/3315/index-tips.html>.
1 Install a Japanese font (see section 1.4).
2 To enable the Unicode flag within Netscape, you need to edit
the Windows registry. The key in question is:
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\u005cSoftware\u005cNetscape\u005cNetscape
Navigator\u005cINTL\u005c"
3 Select "Edit\u005cNew\u005cString Value"
4 Type "UseUnicodeFont" as the value name field and "1" at Value
data field (do not type the quotes).
5 In Netscape, under "Options\u005cGeneral Preferences", select the
Japanese font you installed earlier.
1.5.4 NN 4
Simply installing a Japanese font and telling NN to use this font
should be enough to enable Netscape v4 to display Japanese web pages
flawlessly. NJWIN also works well with this web browser.
1.5.5 Tabibito
This web browser natively displays Japanese text with its own good
quality bitmap font. This font unfortunately is not useable within
other programs. Add-ons exist to enable the program to perform
dictionary lookups on kanji within a web page. It can be downloaded
from <http://www.japancan.com>.
1.5.6 Opera v3
Opera at this stage of development does not have built-in language
capability, but apparently it is planned for some future version. NJWIN
currently appears to provide the best quality for browsing web sites
within this program. However, if a site happens to be in Shift-JIS,
and you happen to be viewing that site in Opera with a Japanese font,
you will be able to read most of the Japanese.
1.5.7 Lynx for DOS
NJWIN will, surprisingly, display Japanese text within this program, if
you are running it within Windows and have not maximised the window.
1.5.8 Tango
Tango is a web browser available from <www.alis.com>. It is available to
download and use free for 30 days, after which it will be disabled by
shareware protection. An add-on module enables Japanese support, and
includes a Japanese truetype font. Various other add-ons support almost
every major script in existance.
1.6 Software workarounds
1.6.1 Wrong country version workaround
If you have bought software overseas that will not install because you
are using the wrong country version of Windows 95, edit the registry
entry which shows the country code before you install it. To do this,
open the
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\u005cSystem\u005cCurrentControlSet\u005ccontrol\u005cNIs
\u005cLocale" and
change the code. The UK one is 00000809; USA is 00000409, and for Japan
it is 00000411. After the software is installed, you can change this
key back.
This was found in PC Format magazine (UK), contributed by Jonathan D
Webb. I have not personally tested this workaround, so I cannot say if
it works.
1.7 Educational software.
JWP and many other applications include some kind of dictionary lookup
function, most commonly using the Edict dictionary. Some also include a
'kanji of the day' function, which operates much like a flashcard
program. This section will list dedicated learning programs.
1.7.1 Jverb
A demo of this verb tutor program is available to download from [URL?].
1.7.2 Transparent.com
This company produces and sells three different packages relevant to
learning Japanese: Power Japanese, Kanji Moments, and KidSpeak.
Unfortunately, demos are not available to download and I do not have
any reviews.
<http://www.transparent.com/languagepages/japanese/japanese.htm>
1.7.3 Kanjicard v1.7
A demo is available to download from the website below. The program
prints and displays from a base of 1006 kanji. 701kb download for the
demo, which contains a sample of 20 kanji.
<http://www.eclecticbits.com/kanjicard/>
1.7.4 Kanjidic
Another flashcard program. A large (7mb) demo is available.
<http://www.kanjisoft.com>
1.7.5 Itaiji-ten
The people at Digital Design Technology have released Ver. 1.01 of the
free software itaiji-ten, which is a little tool for converting
ordinary kanji to itaiji (variant kanji characters). The software is
available at <http://member.nifty.ne.jp/kotobukijirushi/ddt.html>
(Japanese website).
This program will only work on Japanese versions of Windows.
2.0 Macintosh, UNIX, Atari, ZX81, etc...
Sorry, I haven't got a Mac, or any of the others, so I have no idea on
these platforms. Gomen nasai. There is a deliberate decision not to put
anything in this section as I am not personally able to verify any such
information. This section number is included to point out that I am not
ignoring these platforms by accident, but rather, by design.
Those still looking are reminded that the soc.culture.japan FAQ,
maintained by Shimpei Yamashita, has substantial information relevant
to the UNIX and Mac platforms. That FAQ is available to download from
<http://www.submm.caltech.edu/~shimpei/scjm>
If someone has an detailed account of software available for a specific
computer platform, I will entertain suggestions for it to be included
here, and giving that person co-author credit for that section.
2.1 Apple Macintosh
Disclaimer: I do not own a Mac, and none of the following has been tested
by me. All information in this section is reported from others.
The Japanese Language kit was designed to enable Japanese support on a Mac.
Due to enhancements in the latest version of the OS making it obsolete, it
is no longer directly supported by Apple. MacOS 8.6e or higher should have
integral support for Japanese. This language kit can still be purchased
from third parties, such as <http://www.asiasoft.com>.
To read only:
In the MacOS 8.5 installer (and also in OS 9 though I haven't got my copy
yet) there is a custom installer option to install multilingual internet
access. This allows you to view Internet pages (and other documents) in
languages other than the standard European ones. In this option you should
choose Japanese (Chinese, Korean are also available if I remember) and it
will install the Japanese fonts (Osaka etc.) in your System Folder. Then in
your browser's view menu choose Japanese (Auto-detect, shift-JIS or EUC-JP)
and the web pages in japanese will be readable.
You need Japanese language kit or the Japanese language version of MacOS to
write Japanese text. The Japanese OS is supposed to have other goodies such
as Macintalk which allows the computer to speak words in kana.
[Patrick Dowling, Peter Pan, Glenn Giffen]
8.0 Links
8.1 Software producing companies
This is a listing of home pages for companies that produce programs
specifically for the purpose of Japanising a computer.
Neocor http://www.lhsl.com/ [Lernout & Hauspie]
Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/
Free Light Software http://www.flsw.com/
NJStar http://www.njstar.com/
Unionway http://www.unionway.com/
Japancan http://www.japancan.com/
Pacific Software http://www.pspinc.com/
Basistech http://www.basistech.com/
8.2 Software archives
The following sites allow anonymous access and generally contain
a large amount of Japanese-related software.
Monash ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/
Vector http://www.vector.co.jp/ (Japanese OS only)
8.3 Japanese-capable free Email servers
Many Web sites now have free Email, but they do not all allow Japanese
kana to be sent correctly. This is because some of them strip the
control characters necessary to switch between English and Japanese,
and others generate incorrect header information about the language of
the sent Email, causing the receiving Email software to display it
incorrectly.
The following is a partial list of free web based Email services that
are compatible with the extended character set needed to display
Japanese. Of course, any service can display Japanese using romaji
characters.
http://www.excite.co.jp
http://www.robotmail.ne.jp
http://jmail.co.jp
http://freemail.goo.ne.jp
<http://www.genkiproductions.co.jp> also has a comprehensive index of
Email servers, with listings for most languages in the world.
8.4 Websites for learning Japanese
The following URLs have websites designed to help those studying
Japanese.
8.4.1 Lessons
http://homepages.enterprise.net/walrus/school/msj/root/home.htm
The "Manga School of Japanese" was created by a student in
Manchester, UK. A good introduction to basic Japanese grammar,
written in a fun style.
http://www.geom.umn.edu/~burchard/nihongo/
A thorough, if confusing, table showing almost all the verb
conjugations.
http://www.japanesetutor.com/
"Japanese Tutor" is an index of sites intended to help Japanese
teachers and students.
http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/visitors/kenji/lis-stud.htm
This contains an index of mailing lists relevant to language
students, including a few of use for students of Japanese.
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/
"Teach Yourself Japanese" is a good site teaching basic Japanese.
It makes extensive use of Java applets to enhance the lessons.
http://www.playground.net/~tomm/LanguageStrucureNotes.htm
A set of half-completed notes explaining some basic grammar points.
Each page concentrates on a single item in depth.
8.4.2 Dictionaries
The dictionary listings have been moved to the HTML pages that support
this Internet FAQ.
8.4.3 Other
http://map.toppan.co.jp/html/japan.html
An online interactive map of Japan. Not exactly educational, but
very useful to anyone intending to visit Japan. This site is in
Japanese only.
http://www.twics.com/~takakuwa/search/search.html
This is a list of search engines, over 600 in all.
There is a separate section within this page that
covers japanese specific search engines.
http://www.cic.sfu.ca/tqj/
This website contains interesting discussions on various aspects
of the Japanese language.
http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/
The online presence for a major Japanese bookstore.
9.0 Boring bit
9.0.1 Legal Disclaimer
This document carries no guarantee of accuracy whatsoever. No mention
of a product in this document constitutes a recommendation or an
endorsement for its use by the author. The absence of a product should
not be construed as implied criticism of that product. Some efforts have
been made to provide varying degrees of accuracy of the information
presented here, but some estimates have not been verified or updated
with time. Should you find any mistakes, please contact the maintainer.
9.0.2 Copyright notice
This document is copyright (c) Fabian van-de-l'Isle 1998-9.
This document may be quoted freely for non-commercial purposes; please
make appropriate acknowledgment when doing so. The document should be
identified either as the "Japanisation FAQ for computers running Western
Windows", or by the filename <jwinfaq>.
This document and associated web pages may be freely redistributed by
electronic or printed means provided that no money is charged for its
distribution and that this copyright and redistribution notice remains
attached. Any modification to the original text must be explicitly
documented. This document may not be redistributed commercially
(e.g., on a CD-ROM) without an explicit written permission from the
copyright owner. Any distributor that does obtain a permission will be
required to keep this entire document intact, and explicitly notify its
customers that the newest revisions of this document may be freely
obtained from other sources.
Thanks are due to Jim Breen and others for corrections and additions to
various items in this FAQ.
9.0.3 Contact information
The author (Fabian van-de-l'Isle) can be contacted at rhialto at
easynet dot net. Spam sent to this address will be killfiled. My
personal homepage is at <http://www.rhialto.co.uk/index.htm>
9.0.4 Concerning URLs
Concerning URLs: The Internet is dynamic, and URLs are likely to change
without notice. If a listed link is out of date, please tell me so I can
mark it as such. If you have a valid updated link, please tell me that
too.