Bullet Train Timetables Now Viewable in Google Maps

December 7, 2009 10:26 PM by Rick Noelle
Google Japan announced on their blog that bullet train timetables are now viewable from within Google Maps. I thought this was an interesting announcement so I decided to translate it into English. The original blog post can be found here: http://googlejapan.blogspot.com/2009/12/google_04.html. Bullet Train Timetables Now Viewable in Google Maps December 4th, 2009 Posted by Iwasaki Naoki / Software Engineer Suzuki Issei / Software Engineer As we enter December and the end of the year approaches, people ...

Posted in Google Japan, Japan, Translations | 1 Comment »

Google Japanese Input Annoucement

December 3, 2009 2:50 AM by Rick Noelle
Google announced and released their own Japanese input method software (often called an IME). This created quite a buzz on Twitter and I personally am pretty excited about it so I decided to translate the announcement into English. I'm not a professional translator (not even close) but tried to be as accurate as possible. I plan to write a separate blog post about why I think this Google ...

Posted in Google Japan, Japanese Computing, Translations | No Comments »

Using Japanese ClearType fonts in Google Documents

November 23, 2009 11:20 PM by Rick Noelle
I'm a big Google fan and I really like Google Docs. I like being able to easily access all of my documents whether I'm at home, at work, on the road, etc. One thing I use Google docs for frequently is keeping Japanese vocabulary lists. But I've always been a little disappointed that the font "Meiryo" is not available in the font drop-down list (not surprised, just disappointed). ...

Posted in Japanese, Japanese Computing | No Comments »

What are you doing なう?

November 16, 2009 12:32 AM by Rick Noelle
I recently used the word "nau" なう as a "phrase of the day" on Twitter. I said that it is a trendy word often used in Japanese tweets to refer to what a person is doing right "now." I had a request for some examples so I am posting them here. Before the examples, I'd like to point out that I don't know how useful of a word なう ...

Posted in Japanese | 1 Comment »

Nagai Me De Miru

November 2, 2009 10:01 PM by Rick Noelle
This weeks manga clip is from ツヨシもっとしっかりしなさい (Tsuyoshi motto shikkari shinasai) and demonstrates the use of the idiom "nagai me de miru." Literally, this can be translated as "look with a long eye" but in English, we would say, "look at it long term." In this scene, Tsuyoshi's friend Kane is giving the family tips on lowering monthly expenses. Dialog is read from right to left. Japanese: あとこの冷蔵庫かなり古いヤツよね オレが生まれた時からあるんじゃないかな 今の冷蔵庫は節電タイプがあるから長い目で見たら買い換えた方が電気代が得ね English: [Click To Show/Hide] And this refrigerator ...

Posted in Japanese, Manga | 1 Comment »

Iwakan

October 23, 2009 1:29 AM by Rick Noelle
In this scene from the manga Toripan（とりぱん）, Nanko（なん子）and her friend are walking past a place they used to work, debating the severity of the previous night's wind. Nanko suddenly stops and notices that something doesn't look quite right. Japanese: ...この道昨日とは何かが違うような 何だろうこの違和感... English: [Click To Show/Hide] This road looks different than it did yesterday. Hmm, what's out of place? Romaji: ...kono michi kinou to wa nani ka ga chigau youna nan darou kono iwakan... Vocabulary Listing この - this 道 「みち」- road 昨日「きのう」- yesterday とは ...

Posted in Japanese, Manga | No Comments »

Taberu Koto Bakkari

October 16, 2009 8:00 AM by Rick Noelle
In this scene from the manga President Shima Kosaku, Shima Kosaku and his secretary Keiko Kanagawa are riding in a taxi after having just arrived in Moscow on a business trip. (Dialog reads from right of scene to left). Japanese: 社長今日の夕食はグルジア料理です （神奈川恵子）食べることばっかりだなキミは （島耕作） English Translation: [Click To Show/Hide] We'll be having Georgian cuisine for dinner this evening boss. (Kanagawa Keiko) Is eating all you ever think about? (Shima Kosaku) Romanized: Shachou kyou no yuushoku wa gurujia ryouri ...

Posted in Japanese, Manga | 5 Comments »

Microsoft introduces ClearType Japanese font with Vista

October 7, 2008 10:00 PM by Rick Noelle
Recently while browsing through a Japanese university's web site, I noticed that the Japanese fonts looked nice.  Actually, they looked really nice!  They didn't have the pixelated look I have come to expect from fonts such as "MS P Gothic" and "MS 明朝", etc.  Up until now, if you use Microsoft Windows to display Japanese, you were pretty much stuck with the pixelated ones.  This is unfortunate as I believe ...

Posted in Japan Web, Japanese Computing | No Comments »

Perl and Python

August 22, 2008 3:06 PM by Rick Noelle
Today I converted a simple Perl script of mine to Python.  It was pretty easy to do and a good introduction to Python.  The script is meant to run on Linux.  It prompts the user for a command and then runs the command on a list of remote servers and displays the output (using ssh).  For example, if you have 3 remote servers and want to run "uptime" on all ...

Posted in Programming | No Comments »

Google Street View in Japan

August 12, 2008 3:15 AM by Rick Noelle
Now that Tokyo and other large Japanese cities have street view (ストリートビュー) , I occasionally browse around looking for some interesting scenes.  For example, here is a shot of Tokyo Tower: 35.659418, 139.744843 And here is a shot looking up at a Yodobashi Camera shop in Akihabara (if you pan the camera to the reverse view, you an see a train at Akihabara station): 35.698862,139.774266 It is interesting to note that street view ...

Posted in Japan, Japan Web | No Comments »