Swiftkey vs Google vs Swype for Japanese input

Summary:

SwiftKey
  +Fastest for Japanese input
  +Switching languages is easy
Google Japanese input
  +Almost as fast
  +Excellent dictionary
  -English support is poor - but you can switch input methods
Swype
  +Still excellent for handwriting input - possibly useful for beginners to Japanese
  -Considerably slower for Japanese

So, every once and a while, I look through the Google play store and try and find a better way of typing Japanese on my mobile, because frankly, I do a lot of that, and a couple of minutes investigating which method is fastest will pay off in the long run.

Previously, I compared the Swype, Google, and Wnn keyboards. Since then, I've changed phones twice (once to an Aquos Crystal, then to a Kyocera KC01). The increased processing power of these more modern devices makes switching keyboard methods easier, so for a long time I was switching between the Google methods, which still provide excellent predictions for both languages*.

More recently I have been using the Swiftkey keyboard, and despite the fact they have done away with the 12-key keyboard (which works really well with Japanese input), I have increasingly found that it is quicker than Google Japanese Input.

To be sure, I conducted a small test using the following text:

"17日は前線を伴って低気圧が九州に近づくでしょう。九州は昼頃から雨が降り始める見込みです。中国、四国も午前は広く雨で、夜は近畿でも雨が降り出すでしょう。東海、北陸、関東も夜はところどころで雨や雪が降る見込みです。東北と北海道は日本海側で雪のところがありますが、晴れ間の出る所もあるでしょう。18日月曜日の朝は関東の内陸部でも雪の積もるところがありそうです。"

I should probably have used a shorter text... My thumb aches... But this should hopefully make differences between the different methods more apparent.

So, this is how long it took to type with each method:
6:06 with SwiftKey
6:20 with Google Japanese Input in 12-key format
7:49 with Swype keyboard in qwerty format, tapping, not swyping.

These results tally fairly well with my more qualitative observations; Swiftkey is only slightly better at Japanese than Google, but both of these methods are superior to Swype. I would point out that swyping is still not particularly usable for Japanese, but the word prediction is just about sufficient to make tapping viable.

As well as being the fastest method for inputting Japanese, switching to English in SwiftKey is faster than changing input methods with Google (again, footnote*), and the English prediction for SwiftKey is fairly capable. Nonetheless, for words with unusual characters, my gut feeling is that Google performs much better. Additionally, my main gripe with Swiftkey is that it is very easy to mis-press the vowel extension "ー" key instead of "a", and SwiftKey's programming isn't intelligent enough to reinterperet the extension as an "a" depending upon the rest of the word. Then of course, Swype has an excellent integrated handwriting recognition system, which might be worth it for those who need to input characters they don't know the pronounciation for (I imagine, however, that this is mostly going to be in the context of looking words up in a dictionary, for which aedict offers a fairly good method that isn't keyboard-dependent. Plus, free handwriting alternatives now exist).

The bottom line, however, is that SwiftKey is faster and more convenient when switching languages, and for me, these are the deciding factors.

*As I've mentioned before, despite being able to type English using "Google Japanese Input", the prediction is awful, and so I rely on changing input methods.

Every app has a dictionary now. The Aedict suite.

In my recent forays into searching for better solutions to working with Japanese on Android I became aware of a new addition by the developer of Aedict, called (unflatteringly, but descriptively) "Aedict Reader Popup".

I think I've mentioned the following already, but the existence of a dictionary that uses the EDICT Japanese dictionary, i.e. Aedict, was the reason I originally bought a smartphone. Thus allowing me to hold a book in one hand and dictionary in the other while on the bus. Although I was almost ready to jump ship when Aedict turned paid, Aedict3 remained head-and-shoulders above the competition.

Looking through the various Japanese dictionaries in development, there are a number of promising (even free) alternatives available. Indeed, I have Jsho installed on my phone just to see how it develops from here (however, its current lack of technical dictionaries is a bit of a turnoff at the moment*).

It was while looking at these apps that I (quite accidentally) came across the aforementioned Aedict Reader Popup. Despite having my eye on Aedict's competition, I thought I would at least buy it and try it.

I was first presented with the screen to the right. This is AedictReader, a web browser that automatically translates Japanese to English. By accidentally skipping the next dialogue, I thought for a moment this was the entire app. But the settings allow it to be used pretty much anywhere (I've yet to find anywhere it doesn't run; hell, it will even display over World of Goo if I tell it to**). The reader does, however, serve as a useful introduction to Aedict Reader Popup's functions.

Once enabled to work across all apps (I think that is the default setting), copying text will result in a popup, as shown to the left. Any dictionaries you have enabled in Aedict3*** will be consulted for a match. The picture shows an example of the app being used on a biosciences document. Since I have the life sciences dictionary installed, "transcriptional activity" is correctly displayed when "転写活性" is selected and copied in my document viewer (I've blurred the rest of the writing in the GIMP*4 but you get the idea).

Tapping on the popup gives access to more advanced functions, including the ability to quickly switch to Aedict3 to have a closer look at the word and scrutinize it further. There is also the option to temporarily remove the popup or minimize it (down to about the size of a fingerprin; easy to push, but unobtrusive on my largish AQUOS Crystal).

You can set the popup app to remain in the notification bar; from there you can activate the popup even if using a program from which you cannot copy/paste. If you have the paid Aedict3 Kanjipad plugin, this lets you copy the character in-situ*5. You can also do a normal search, though with the app-of-interest, the popup, and the keyboard on screen, it does get crowded. On tablets; however, this is very manageable.

When reading books on the Kindle, Aedict's new popup app even seems to outperform Kindle's own dictionaries (see below), especially considering Aedict is aware of verb tense, while Kindle's is not!

The only thing I can imagine that would make this better is integration of the OCR package, so that I can hover the popup over some uncopyable text and have the popup translate it. A tall order, but given the completeness and robustness of the app, I wouldn't be surprised if such a feature does appear in the future.

Conclusion

Today, I expect almost every learner of Japanese, everyone with Japanese as a second language, absorbs the language in some way via their phones. Whether it is film, books, instant messaging, news, websites, or even games, any tool that could be used to take the chore out of looking up a new word, or a forgotten word, makes these activities even more rewarding than before. Thus, it is easier to spend more time getting better at Japanese.

The popup app extends the features of the Aedict suite into almost any/all app(s) and does so without compromising the ability to search multiple dictionaries. It works and responds well on phones and tablets, even where the most basic system functions (such as copy/paste) fail. From my own experiences, I surmise that there has never been a more robust, accurate, and flexible Japanese dictionary tool in history*6, besides -perhaps- the human mind.

The ol' Nexus 7 running Kindle. Left: Kindle's own Japanese-English dictionary shows the entry, and I can get a full definition from there (but that opens up a new window, so I cannot see the word with its definition in the context of the book). Right: pressing the copy icon brings up Aedict's definition, complete with example sentences, all in one place so that I can still see the word in context. Moreover, having the popup installed doesn't interfere with the apps existing functions, so I (of course) still have Kindle's Wikipedia links etc.

*It is also light on other features, such as different methods for kanji lookup, though handwriting recognition is probably the way forward. Given the dictionary aims to be "simple, lightweight, fast and accurate. No unnecessary splash screens and no need to download any additional files", I'm not sure we'll see Jsho becoming the powerhouse that Aedict is.

**Rest assured, this is optional.

***And usefully, ONLY those dictionaries you have enabled in Aedict3's word search.

*4 "GNU Image Manipulation Program", before you get any odd ideas...

*5 previously you'd have to copy the character onto paper and then use the drawing to rewrite the character into the dictionary, or use another device with a Japanese dictionary. Either way, the new solution is much more elegant.

*6 good enough that I took the time to upload pictures, which I don't often do. Also its difficult to explain just how elegant the app is without them.

Handwritten Japanese Input by Google

Summary:
+Google's handwriting engine is free and highly accurate for writing Japanese characters
-If you already have good handwriting recognition as part of your dictionary, you likely wont need this

Having rediscovered that I own a blog, I thought I'd have another delve into the experience of using Japanese with Android, and quickly came upon the existence of Google's very own handwriting recognition (apparently its been around for months now, though).

I was very happy to see this for 3 reasons: 1) Google provide their input methods for free, 2) Google's products tend to work very well with each other

Reason 1 doesn't really require introduction, everyone loves a freebie, and anyone who has read any of my previous rants will know I am a techno-miser.

For point 2, I'd like to point out how all of Google's input methods* have a shortcut where you long-press the space bar to switch input methods. Thus you can switch between English, Japanese, and handwriting method fairly simply. (Many of the iWnn methods require that you pull down the notification menu and select the input method dialog from there).

So, lets do a little test. I randomly took whatever Japanese happened to be on my desk, in this case "電気料金等払込取扱票"**. Not particularly challenging, but a nice string of characters. So, I'll use a few handwriting recognition apps/input methods to see how good they are at recognizing my numpty attempts at copying these words by hand. The method counts as correctly predicting if it shows the character I want in the suggestions it displays.

Google handwriting recognition 100% correct, of which 100% were the 1st suggestion
Kanji Draw 60% correct, of which 50% were the 1st suggestion
Swype (In handwriting mode) 100% correct, of which 100% were the 1st suggestion
Aedict3 KanjiPad Extension 100% correct, of which 70% were the 1st suggestion
MyScript Stylus Beta - 90% correct, of which ~70% were the 1st suggestion

Similarly, the results for "納付書兼領収剤通知書"*** were:

Google - 90% correct, of which 100% were the 1st suggestion
Kanji Draw - 50% correct, of which 80% were the 1st suggestion
Swype - 90% correct, of which 100% were the 1st suggestion
MyScript Stylus Beta - 100% correct, of which 90% were the 1st suggestion
Aedict3 KanjiPad Extension - 100% correct, of which 90% were the 1st suggestion.

Evidently, the methods are neck-and-neck.

I'll keep Swype installed and hope that one day they'll release an update with prediction on par with Google's (Swype's language switching is faster and easier than Google's, but I've grown dependent upon how Google correctly interprets my input in the easier-to-use 12-key format).

However, I am thinking of switching from Google to Swiftkey. Why? Swiftkey's Japanese beta offers: one-tap switching between English/Japanese with very good prediction*4 in both languages and swipe input for English*5.




The other reason for this is that handwriting is only really useful when you need to input a character you cannot copy/paste and do not know the pronunciation of: ie. a random word you find in a book*6. The only reason I ever have for doing this is to look something up in a dictionary. Consequently, having bought into*7 the whole Aedict bundle (which I still think is the best dictionary around, despite previous misgivings*8) it makes sense to use the dictionary's kanjipad.


Also, note that I changed the settings of the Aedict handwriting recognition to search for kanji with the wrong number of strokes because the added accuracy saves time in the long run (if you're as sloppy a writer as me).


*at least, the ones I've used
** Yeah, I also find it depressing that the most prominent Japanese on my desk happens to be my electricity bill...
*** So many bills :(
*4 Google Japanese Input's English prediction is, for some reason, awful. Also, by very good Japanese prediction, I mean I can type "かつこうにいくとおもつた" and have it converted into "学校に行くと思った". However, Swiftkey didn't recognise the word 電磁気学 like Google does.
*5 Swype offers swipe input for both languages, but I never found it particularly reliable for Japanese, which I presume is because of the short consonant-vowel pattern of the language. Swiftkey seem to realise this and offer swipe for English and a 12-key layout for Japanese as default.
*6 or bill! (-_-;)
*7 technically, I only bought the Aedict KanjiPad Extension for the test above...
*8 And I still wouldn't recommend the Aedict OCR app.

Translating typos with Google search

Its probably fairly evident that I love Google's services by now, and I thought I'd just highlight a particularly useful feature in Google search.

When translating documents upwards of 10000 characters (10+ pages long), the chance of finding a typo somewhere is not by any means small. I have on numerous occasions banged my head over a frustrating translation, where a word would simply not make sense in context.

My usual procedure is to double tap Ctrl+C to bring up Golden Dict, into which I've plugged in an offline version of the indispensable WWWJDIC, which will resolve 90% of my queries immediately. If this fails, I alt-tab to my browser where Weblio is waiting with a whole host of dictionaries (including WWWJDIC, and the Life Sciences dictionary by Kyoto University), which will catch the remaining 9.9% or so (and also tends to give some very nice technical usage examples).

If a word fails at this point, frustration sets in as I splice and dice the word to see if the supposed word is actually 2 or more words strung together, but even this will not help if the word is a typo.

In this case, there are few options left available, but a Google search is often invaluable, not only providing some nice usage examples, but sometimes even finding a definition in some obscure internet glossary. In the case of typos however, Google will automatically search using the "correct" spelling. At this point, the fact the search term is actually a typo becomes clear and we can start at the beginning with the correct term*. Lovely! Imagine trying to work this out for yourself with paper dictionaries back before computers were on hand. Eugh.

A word of warning, though. Google love search terms that are common, and it isn't necessarily obvious whether the Google search is deciding against using your search terms because of a typo, or because it is just prioritising what it thinks you want to read about.


*Today I came across "胚葉体形成" in a source document, which can be split into "胚葉" germ layer, "体" body, "形成" formation, which I initially translated as "germ layer formation", but was unhappy with the context, and while dropping "body" improved the flow I wasn't happy about it: "body" could have referred to cells in a germ layer. I decided to Google the term and see if there was a useful precedent, only to be bombarded by results for the similar: "胚様体形成". At this point, I realised "胚様" and  "胚葉" are homophones, and that this may be a typo. Sure enough typing in "はいよう" with Microsoft Japanese IME puts "胚葉" at the top of the candidate suggestion list. "胚様体形成" translated to "embryoid body formation", which fit better into context.

Swype vs Google vs Wnn. The best Android Japanese input method?

To summarise this needlessly long blog post:

Google Japanese Input
+Excellent intelligent 12-key keyboard
+Integrates with other apps
+Japanese style emoticons
-English autocorrection non-existant

Wnn Keyboard Lab (best for phones?)

+Good intelligent 12-key keyboard
+Good English autocorrection/prediction
+Integrates with other apps
+Japanese style emoticons

Swype  (best for tablets? Or if you always have 2 hands on your phone)

+Superior English autocorrection/prediction
+Superior Japanese handwriting recognition
+Copy/paste functionality
-Costs money
-Writing Japanese time consuming with 1-hand
-Quirky Japanese autocorrections

(EDIT: Other input methods summarized at the bottom of this post)

I've used a few Japanese input methods for Android both on my tablet and my phone, but having recently had to use these on a daily basis for messaging friends and looking up words, I wondered which method was the fastest.


I've seen others using the 12-key "flick" systems, which I suspect is the main contender to the QWERTY layout. Other layouts exist, such as those that display ALL the hiragana (but this necessitates a lot of buttons, and I've shied away from them because of the tiny screen on my phone).

I've used lots of input methods of the QWERTY and 12-key layout, my favourites when I started this were the Swype keyboard for the former, and Google Japanese Input for the latter. I also added the Wnn Keyboard Lab halfway through, since it had a nice blend of features from both of these. But which is faster? I did a little test on the following sentence:

ことしは、はしかの患者が例年よりも多くなっていて、すでに去年1年間の患者数をこえたことが、国立染病研究所の検査で分かりました。

Computer QWERTY keyboard: 40 s
Samsung Galaxy Fame
    Swype Keyboard (2-handed): 115 s
    Swype Keyboard (1-handed): 161 s
    Google Japanese Input 12-key (1-handed): 126 s
    Google Japanese Input 12-key (2-handed): 107 s
    Wnn Labs 12-key (1-handed):  118 s

Turns out that Google is just a tiny bit faster, especially for 1-handed input. I should point out I was NOT using the swiping method, but was punching the Swype keypad, because the swype functionality is actually pretty awful for Japanese. Also, there are probably some fairly large error bars on these figures (no, I didn't do this test in triplicate!), so no input method is really standing head and shoulders above the rest.

Most people reading this far will probably also be doing a lot of typing in English. So I thought I'd do another test with the following text, typing each word in full..

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Computer keyboard: 26s
Samsung Galaxy Fame

    Google Japanese Input QWERTY (2-handed): 96 s

    Google Japanese Input 12-key (1-handed): 119 s

    Google Japanese Input 12-key (2-handed): 107 s
    Swype Keyboard (1-handed): 63 s
    Swype Keyboard (2-handed): 50 s
    Wnn labs QWERTY (2-handed): 67 s

Here, on what I guess is its home ground, Swype keyboard puts Google Japanese Input to shame, mainly because English for Google Japanese Input has no autocorrect! Ouch. Of course, you could argue that for English I should be using the English Google input (which would probably fair similarly to Swype), but switching between input methods has always been a bit clunky on Android, and with the 2 programs above, I don't need to change input methods. The additional advantage of this is that I don't swell the RAM usage (which is a critical point for a budget phone like mine). Noteably, Wnn labs' keyboard performed almost as well as Swype in this instance, just a few seconds behind due to the less accurate autocorrection.

So speed-wise, Wnn labs and Swype are pretty much tied.

What about other functionalities?

Swype has superb Japanese handwriting recognition. Possibly the best handwriting recognition for Japanese on Android, in my experience. For looking up unknown characters, this is great stuff, and having it built-in to the keyboard, and thus usable within just a second or two, makes it great at quickly looking up words. Great if you're reading a paperback, or especially if skimming new words from the TV, since they'll only be around for a very short time in most cases.

However, if you're not in a rush, there are other handwriting recognition programs that will get the job done. Google translate can be coerced into this role by copying text, as can kanji draw (which will do so without an internet connection). Neither of these options are quite as nippy as Swype, though.

Both Wnn Labs and Google have the Japanese style emoticons, which are missing from Swype. I have to admit to missing these on Swype..

Swype makes some strange autocorrect choices. Swype's autocorrect is the best (overall); however, there are some quirks that you wont find when using the other available options, such as "mo" never wanting to be converted into "も". You can choose "もう" instead, and delete the "う", or add a newline, but it seems very strange, considering "も" is a spectacularly common particle, for it not to default to the hiragana upon pressing the space bar... Additionally, the proximity of "u", "i" and "o" to each other on the keypad makes autocorrection very difficult for Swype in some cases. Using Wnn labs or Google's 12-key keypad mostly negates the need for autocorrection, because the keys are big enough that you'll not miss a button. Nonetheles, Swype's English autocorrection is near flawless.

Wnn Labs and Google can launch external apps. For me this means aedict3. Your current text gets sent automatically to whichever programs you have set up to receive, effectively turning any textbox into a dictionary shortcut when you need it.

Wnn Labs and Google have intelligent 12-key keypads. 12-key keypads (as shown above) are actually pretty fast for Japanese input. This is facilitated by intelligent prediction of characters, so that one can type "しやない" instead of "じゃない" (which would require 50% more keypresses to change the し into a じ, and to make the や small), and pull the correct phrase from the predictions bar. Swype has a 12-key keyboard hidden in the settings under "日本語", but is not intelligent. For Swype, you're better off with the full keypad.

Swype has easy copy-paste functionality. You can swipe from the swipe button to C (to copy) or V (to paste). Intuitive and effective, perhaps occasionally saving you a second or so?


To conclude, I recommend both Swype and Wnn Keyboard Lab. Swype is spectacular for English, and handles Japanese fairly well. Additionally, Swype will make character look ups a breeze with its superior offline character recognition. Wnn Keyboard Lab is great if you're using a phone to write Japanese 1-handed, and certainly isn't a sloth when it comes to English either (which is where Google Japanese Input fails pretty badly). On top of this, it integrates into aedict3. I can see myself using Wnn Keyboard Lab for my phone, which often gets used 1-handed, and Swype on my tablet, where 2 hands is a given.



P.S. You know your procrastination is getting really bad when you spend the best part of an hour typing the same thing into a phone again and again and again.. Still, maybe this will be of use to someone. (^^;

EDIT:
Here are some other input methods I tried at a later date.

Simeji 2015/03/03 - looks great, and integrates into the aedict dictionary (nice!) but the predictive text isn't as good as Google's and Wnn lab's
IQQI 2015/03/03 - Intriguing - has a full hiragana/katakana keyboard in addition to the normal keyboards; however, the "predictive text" again doesn't match up to Wnn or Google.
Go Keyboard 2015/03/03 - Pretty standard, same criticism as above.
I'll also add the criticism that Swype seems to load up much slower than the other keyboards.
KK Keyboard 2015/03/03 - Not bad; has advanced predictive text like Wnn and Google, but no flick input, and the English prediction is fairly terrible, like Google's
Swiftkey 2015/03/03 - Comes up in searches on the play store for Japanese keyboard, but doesn't actually have Japanese support (there is a beta, but you have to sign up - I don't have the time right now)
Multiling/O-keyboard 2015/03/03 - a complete pain to install, as you need to install each of the dictionaries individually (so 3 packages if you want multiling, and an EN dic and a JP dic - a 4th if you want handwriting.. I understand the desire for modularity, but this is a little awkward for the user) Has advanced predictive text for the 12-key JA keypad, as well as highly predictive text for the 12-key EN keypad

Still, as of March 2015, Google seems to be the only input method that can guess how to dice a Japanese sentence so if you type "かつこうにいく",  "学校に行く" appears as a candidate. Add to this the fact that the Google keyboards seem to be switching more fluidly between each other now, and it seems that going with the Google keyboards is the way forward now.

Japanese Radio & Android part 2

Some time ago, I reviewed some internet radio apps for Android. In particular, I was keen to point out the ability of MediaU to run on my old HTC Tattoo.

In attempting to set something similar up with my Samsung Galaxy Fame, I was surprised by the poor quality of the TuneIn app, unlike my previous experience with this on my Nexus 7, I found it would cut- out- every- few- seconds.

Finding a replacement for TuneIn was (as before) a complete pain, probably because of my ridiculous necessity that my radio apps can play a selection of Japanese stations (this selection, to be precise). MediaU worked well; however, there are a number of stations from simulradio.jp that do not make an appearance..

I found a couple of apps to bypass this problem. Firstly, VLC for Android beta, which handily adds file associations that allow you to click on the links from the simulradio.jp site and automatically start streaming. However, VLC takes an eternity to actually start playback, during which time you're left guessing whether VLC has crashed, as there is no visual cue to tell you buffering is occurring (I assume that is what is happening anyway).

My current favorite app for listening to Japanese radio turned out to become FlowAudio, which (despite being almost invisible in the Play store [probably due to its low user base]) boasts very nice presentation, and the ability to search, find, and play all my favourite simulradio stations, as well as some stations such as FM Kushiro, which appear to stream in a format that leave most apps baffled (VLC is another exception here, so long as you're patient enough to wait for the playback to start).

Critically, the playback is very good (I don't recall any cutouts so far). However, some basic functions like saving a station to a list of favourites, appear to be missing. On the upside, FlowAudio will also play music stored on the device, keeping all my audio in one app, if I so wish.

I should also point out that the Fame, as imported from the UK, does have an FM radio, but this radio is locked onto the UK frequencies, and consequently the only station I can pick up sans wifi is NHK Okayama..

Japanese and the Samsung Galaxy Fame S6810

So, I decided that, nice though the tablet/keitai phone setup was, having a working smartphone is much more handy when moving around. As much as it excels at documents and surfing, I don't terribly like using my old Nexus 7 tablet as a mp3 player. Also, its not as convenient a dictionary as a dinky smartphone you can quickly whip out whenever you spot an offending word*.

For my last trip to Tokyo, I resurrected my old HTC Tattoo by I rooting it, and swapping in my Softbank SIM card (Rooting it was a complete pain, as all the rooting instructions I could find (supposedly specifically for the HTC tattoo) didn't work**). The advantage was that I gained the ability to run programs like LINE and aedict3. However, the Tattoo simply doesn't have the required oomph to operate newer versions of Android, or the apps that run on it. Both the aforementioned apps ran terribly slowly.

So, I spent a couple of days mulling it over before deciding on a Samsung Galaxy Fame S6810 *3*. My primary concerns on purchasing were: Price, a version of Android where I could use the aforementioned apps, and a decent-ish camera. Despite numerous reviews complaining about the sluggishness of the Fame, I anticipated that compared to the 2009 smartphone technology that I was used to, that the Fame would feel nippy enough for me.

Having dabbled with the Fame for a day, I think my anticipations were on the mark. The device feels very powerful in comparison to the Tattoo, and my bread-and-butter apps (currently aedict3, ankidroid, and LINE) run very smoothly, almost as smooth as on my Nexus 7. The budget price only really became much of an issue for me when switching between applications, but the lag-times there are only on the same order as the Tattoo, despite using more intensive applications.

The disparity between the cameras is considerable, as one would hope. This makes optical character recognition very viable on the Fame, which is something that didn't really cross my mind before (I've not been using it up 'till now because the Tattoo sports a terrible camera, and the old Nexus 7 doesn't have the forward facing camera). Google Translate appears particularly competent here, and while I don't go much on some of the machine translations, you can select the source text and paste it into aedict3, or ankidroid, so it remains very useful. Google Translate's handwriting input also seems fairly friendly to slap-dash kanji stroke orders, and again can be copied. I somehow overlooked this feature previously, but may be using it a lot in future.

So in summary, the Fame excels as a handy pocket dictionary, while seeming able to cope with my other modest demands. Certainly a phone I would recommend to anyone after a cheap device that gets the job done.



*ie any word that I don't happen to know..

** that said, anyone with a working knowledge of the linux command line can solve the conundrum with a little thinking. Unfortunately I didn't document the efforts, but I doubt anyone still uses the Tattoo now.

*3* For the record, I purchased from Eternal Communications Ltd. via Amazon.co.uk. Unlike most of the suppliers in England their prices and delivery rates were both reasonable.

Japanese on Android 2014

I've been writing a lot recently about the aedict 3 Japanese dictionary. I guess that says a lot about how important the app is for me, plus its one of the topics I know gets attention (there's no point talking to an empty room, right?*). In my previous post I touched on the various problems with Japanese on Android, and how far things have come, and I think now is an interesting time to look at the situation in more detail.

Firstly, some background: I first got a smartphone to integrate my mp3 player, phone, and my (super-chunky) electronic dictionary into one device. Juggling all three on the bumpity bus to work each day was somewhat tiring. That was something like 2010 or so.

Four years have passed and my phone has retired**, I've transitioned to a 7" Google Nexus tablet (the first version), and gone back to using a non-smartphone***. This reflects the fact I now get my Japanese literature in electronic form (Kindle can be coaxed into downloading Japanese books, even if you're living abroad), and the Nexus 7 is just small enough to fit into my trouser pockets if necessary (though given the comments from my wife, I wouldn't say it was a fashionable approach... *4*).

This brings me onto my first point: reading e-literature in Japanese has really become viable now. There are a plethora of pdf readers, and book stores are also adapting to the Android format. The obvious example is Kindle, which is a very nice reader. It includes a dictionary feature, too, which makes things decidedly easier.

However, if you want to read material from a PDF (the format is standard in the sciences and technical journals worldwide, including Japan) standards slip. English in PDFs is easy, I've used several PDF readers before; however, if you're reading Japanese text, you will inevitably come across a character you don't know, at which point you'll probably hold your finger down on the said character and one of three things will happen:

1. Nothing; Your PDF viewer is rubbish. Do not pass go, do not collect £200.
2. You'll select just 1 of the 4 characters you want; You must fiddle with text selection widgets. Miss a turn.
3. The whole sentence will get selected; You must fiddle with deleting the unwanted text. Miss a turn.

Problem 1 is spectacularly common, and can only be overcome by getting another PDF viewer, which will often be exactly the same, or will lead you to problems 2 & 3.

Recently I happened upon Radaee PDF Reader. The text selection works on a more Japanese-friendly basis by initiating text selection after a long press, and allowing you to select more text by simply dragging that press along. Sounds great? Maybe not. Given the "long-press, fiddle" orthodox that almost all the other apps employ, Radaee's method doesn't come naturally. Worse, Radaee's whitespace detection is buggy; for those documents which Adobe exhibits problem 3 (those odd, old-looking, grainy documents), Radaee will insert a space between each letter, so you end up having to edit the copied text anyway.

The above problems are inherent to a host of apps; Kingsoft Office defaults to problem 3, Google's apps default to either 1 (e.g. quickoffice for PDFs) or 2 (web browsing and such).

Where the text selection is robust, as is my experience with most of Google's apps, this isn't much of a problem; however, there is a huge population (I assume Chinese, which also lacks whitespace, also has this problem) for which the text selection is not greatly intuitive.

My next observation is that of input methods. I spent more than 3 years using freely available input methods, and the Google Japanese input is still a pretty solid input method, especially if you use a keyboard much. Nonetheless, I've always dreamed of the ability to write Japanese characters by hand; a function so necessary to looking up words in Japanese. I had high hopes for Hanwriting, which enabled handwritten input; however, in practice it is pretty terrible. Newer input methods appear to have made up the ground; however, and with Swype input, I could easily, and consistently get the right character, despite my terrible handwriting and funky stroke order. My hope is these features will get integrated into Google's default input methods, but I'm not sure what the chances of this are (Google will make more money if you have to buy a keyboard app than if they spend the hours to implement the feature, though it could be argued that increasing usability makes Android more appealing to customers from the start..). I should point out that I now have a Windows 8.1 tablet/notebook and it has Japanese handwriting recognition out-of-the-box (well, I did buy it in Japan, but for overseas users, it should just be a simple, free IME download)

Flashcard programs have been around for ages, and I still use Ankidroid now. I don't think there is much development that can really occur on that front, nor do I think it is needed.

Combine all of the above with email/LINE and a friend or two, and you have pretty much all the resources you'll ever need to learn, and enjoy Japanese, all in your pocket. A handful of enhancements are all that are really needed to make Japanese on Android completely seamless.



*I do that too, mind...

**It no longer connects to any networks, effectively making it a terribly slow, terribly small tablet.. *5*

*** That said, even the "normal" phones in Japan have always been more functional than non-smartphones in the UK, for as long as I've known them. But it looks like non-smartphones are on their way out now, the guy in the Softbank store say they're the only company signing new contracts on traditional phones. Not sure if that is true.

*4* Is that a 7" tablet in your pocket, or...?

Aedict3, all grown up

I know I've been going on somewhat about aedict 3 recently, but it has been developing at a considerable rate lately, and after giving it some more thorough use, I thought it worth a little note here.

I'm not sure exactly when it was brought in, but aedict now has a "live search" function. When I read that in the changelog, I wasn't particularly impressed; I figured how much time does it save having to not press a button? However, it is surprising how convenient this little feature is!

Firstly, I found the time savings are actually fairly considerable in most cases (qualitatively speaking). However, what I love most about this feature is that it provides a text glossing functionality akin to the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development group's very own site*.

What is the fuss about text glossing? Well, a lot of well-known apps like "Kingsoft Office" and "Adobe Reader" are terrible at selecting Japanese text. The problem appears to be that they are used to separating words by spaces and punctuation, as we do in English. However, Japanese doesn't use whitespace characters, and so when you hold your finger on a word in either of the above programs (and I'm sure they're not the only ones**), it selects between the two nearest punctuation, which might contain several words.

After selecting Japanese text in such a program, you then have 2 options: Firstly, you can use the fiddly text selection controls to highlight just the word you want to copy into the dictionary. Secondly, you can copy the whole sentence, then edit it once you've pasted into the dictionary.

The advantage in having text glossing is that you can just dump the whole sentence into the dictionary's input box, and you get a translation of all the words in the sentence. No fiddling with text selections, no editing of the sentence; a huge time saver, especially considering the text glossing is included in the live search, so you just paste, sit back and watch the magic.

Ultimately, my praise here is as much a reflection of my frustration with other programs (such as Kingsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat) that do the bare minimum to support Japanese text. Nonetheless, if you do a lot of work with Japanese documents (I do some freelance translation, and read the odd scientific article**** in Japanese), then you will frequently need to work around this problem. Aedict3 has made this process about as painless as I expect things will get, and for those who do a lot of reading of Japanese on their android devices, I highly recommend dishing out for Aedict3.


* For the unaware, the EDRDG is the home of edict and JMdict, which is integral to aedict. I'm not sure about the specifics, but without it, and the work of Jim Breen, we'd probably be a lot poorer in the dictionary department.

** Because how do you write a program to detect word edges in Japanese? It would be very difficult, I think. A work around would be to only select contiguous kanji characters. This would make selecting hiragana words more difficult***; however, because hiragana is phonetic, it is easy to reproduce by typing elsewhere, if needs be.

*** you'd have to drag the selection over the characters you wanted, which people do when they want to select more than one word of English anyway. So not spectacularly more difficult, really.

**** scientific articles are commonly distributed as pdf files.

Aedict3 Slow and steady wins the race

A while back I posted about the glaring deficiencies between the paid-for Aedict3 and the freely available Aedict 2.

This week, Aedict 3 was updated and with it, so far as I can see, all of the features from aedict 2.

Its reassuring that the author is still working on the project, and I feel that my meagre investment in buying the paid-for version is starting to go the distance. That said, I'd still say that aedict3 has done little more than catch up with its predecessor. There are some nice changes, but these are entirely cosmetic so far as I can see. Nonetheless, it feels like there is momentum in the project, and perhaps aedict3 will soon surpass version 2.

The bottom line at the moment is that I still recommend version 2 if you're starting to seriously read in Japanese.

EDIT: Aedict 3 has finally overtaken it's older sibling, and I think people should now start seriously considering getting hold of it, especially if they read a lot of Japanese on their device see this blog post

Aedict 3: big on version numbers, lean on features

So, as I stated previously, here, new versions of aedict are now paid-for. Now the big question, was it worth £3.50 to get it?

For the impatient, the answer is no. For any readers I haven't lost by now (that's assuming anyone even made it as far as "no"), I will elaborate. Aedict3, while being flashier and maybe even easier to navigate, is decidedly less functional than the free version. There are no more "advanced" options; you cannot restrict your search to "starts with", "ends with", or "exact match". To me, this is a big setback: if you're reading through a book and there is a word you've never seen before, there is still a very good chance you'll know what either the starting or the ending character is, and not being able to search on that basis is going to make reading books somewhat more arduous.

Additionally, the search is as accurate as before, typing 問 as a search term brings up words like 受け止める, even though the latter does not contain the former. I'm not sure whether that is an error of aedict or with the dictionary file itself, but either way it doesn't lend itself to quickly finding out what a word is, or to finding out about related words/phrases.

So, as suggested in the title, aedict 3 is a significant step backwards. But I'm not terribly worried about this, and I said before, I owe the author at least a beer for his previous efforts, the quality (or lack thereof) of aedict 3 wasn't a factor in my purchase.

I hope that future versions of aedict 3 will become as feature-rich as the freely available aedict 2, and while I wouldn't recommend it just now, I would say it could be worth signing onto aedict's google group, and keeping an eye on it.

EDIT: Aedict3 has continued to improve over the months following this blog article, and I'm quite happy to endorse it fully now. See this post.

Aedict goes paid/unpaid

Recently the author of the superb android Japanese dictionary app announced that future versions of Aedict would require a one-off payment of $5 (The existing version will be available free-of charge).

To be honest, while I was disappointed, the idea of buying a beer for the author isn't one I find objectionable, after all, I've used the software a great deal in the last 4 or so years. Having a family, I can also sympathise with juggling commitments, and I've laid down a number of my own hobbies (including programming, funnily enough) too, for the same reason.

What annoys me is that the payment is under the pretence that his family situation is affecting his ability to work on the project:

"Unfortunately, I have a family now and I can no longer afford to develop Aedict for free"

And yet, later in the announcement:

"I am currently preparing a new version of Aedict"

Finally the announcement terminated with the line:

"but the only other option I had was to abandon Aedict entirely"

Gods no! What about passing it on to someone? It's already open source, and is the most useful Japanese dictionary on the Android platform, someone will pick it up.

That said, if the features are good, will I purchase aedict 3? Yes, I think so. His app is so integral to how I've learned and enjoyed Japanese the last few years that I genuinely feel I owe him it. So sure, Martin, have a drink on me, but drop the pretence, eh?

Book: "Visas for 6000 lives" 「六千人の命のビザ」

It's been a while since I posted. I've spent most of that time writing my PhD thesis, and preparing its defence. In my spare time, I've done a fair amount of reading, my main challenge being "Visas for 6000 lives" (六千人の命のビザ).

Initially, I was quite keen (having been somewhat thrown by what I considered the difficult language in Natsume Souseki's "Bocchan") to read "Visas for 6000 lives" in English; however, I had read on the net that the translation isn't terribly good, and so I decided to get a Japanese copy and read that instead.

As it happens, I'm quite pleased I got the Japanese copy: for the most part the Japanese is not too hard going, and it was interesting enough to keep me going to the end (The most difficult part being a small telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which I had to resort to getting a Japanese friend to read through for me, but besides this, the language was very accessible).

My main interest in the book is the act of humanity performed by Chiune Sugihara through which thousands of Jews were saved during the Second World War; however, the book somehow manages to condense this chapter of Sugihara's life into the first chapter (of seven). Despite this, I feel the scene was set sufficiently well, and there are a wealth of experiences and excitement through the following chapters.

As someone who knows very little of what civilian life was like in Europe during the Second World War, the book was a fascinating, sometimes heart-wrenching, glimpse of that era; albeit from the perspective of the exceptionally well-to-do.

I'd recommend the book to anyone who, like me, has little knowledge of life in Europe during that time, or is interested in finding out more about Chiune Sugihara.

Lonely penpals (-_-)

The internet is full of people. But like the big city, it can be a lonely place...

I stand by my belief that getting an email friend or pen friend to practice your Japanese with is the easiest way to learn the language. However, it does have its downsides... I'm not sure whether its something about how I pick email friends or what, but it seems that everyone online is exceptionally lonely for some reason or another. Let me take a moment to exemplify with a list of some of my recent friends.

1) An enthusiastic Nagoyan (can you say that? I hope so, it sounds like something from a sci-fi!), with a significant other that they feel is weighing them down, but which they feel too responsible for to dump (in this case, possibly a good thing until the said significant other sees a psychiatrist, but that goes beyond our scope here).

2) A charming Toykonian hikikomori (from what I can tell) with apparently no friends, a possible inferiority complex, and no clear direction (as if you need a clear idea of what you want to do at university age).

3) A highly imaginative Yokohaman in a loveless marriage who is looking for "something to stir their heart"

4) I forget where this one was from, but having given them my LINE ID, they proceeded to send a shedload of pictures, some of which she was just in her bra... She can count herself lucky I'm not a stalker... In any case, not exactly the picture of sanity there.

Excepting #4, they're all definitely very nice people, and I've met plenty of normal people online. However, this accounts for about a fifth of my recent email friends, and it paints a rather depressing picture of these online penfriend sites.

It gets worse though: I read a post on Japan-guide.com's forum today of a guy whose email friend had supposedly killed themselves after the said guy stopped contacting them. Reading into it, it actually seems a bit suspect... But whether it is true or not, the poor guy (because it wasn't really any fault of his) felt terrible about this, and perhaps they'll bear that pain in some way or other for the rest of their lives.

Luckily I've only met lonely people so far, not suicidal ones, and frankly the lonely ones tend to reply more often. I'm happy enough, I guess, in letting them unload their worries seeing as we're both benefiting from it (and in any case, some of my email friends have helped me talk through some problems of my own). But, it is sobering, nonetheless.

Gathering Japanese Penpals

So, in my last post I spouted some more bullsh-, I mean advice, about how awesome it is to learn Japanese from a penfriend/email friends.

I thought I'd also share some thoughts about which sites I have found useful.

I've had some good luck with http://www.japan-guide.com/local/. I think it was through that site that my wife first emailed me. But, in any case I've had a 3 or 4 long-lasting penpals because of that site, which I think is pretty good going. And additionally, this was a long time ago, and is definitely a good site for beginners of Japanese.

For those at the more advanced level*, I have a couple of recommendations. I've used Atmeltomo.com for a while now, I believe its one of the first hits if you do a google search, as is merutomopark.jp. But for those of you who haven't typed メル友 (email friend) into google before, I think its worth a bit of a summary.

Atmeltomo.com is good in that it has a pretty large user base, and there is always someone online (though I've not had a huge amount of luck finding these online people in the early hours of Japan Standard Time), and submitting a post usually gets a few replies. In addition to creating a profile, you can submit posts in one of several categories, which correspond to most things you might want to talk about. You can also post in different age categories if you'd prefer to find someone your own age, or in geographic categories (which consists of the different regions of Japan and "overseas").

I try not to to post in the overseas section, as that usually results in being inundated with messages from people wanting to learn English, but if your Japanese isn't so good, it might be a good place to start from, as a lot of visitors to that message board have at least some proficiency in English.

The site has its cons though. Firstly, it is riddled with some pretty ahem naughty adverts. As much as I'm fond of the female form, its not terribly conducive to level-headed conversation, and I use an ad-blocker on it these days. Maybe its because of this that there seem to be a lot of people on that site with dubious intentions... Also, I find that most of the people I come into contact with stop emailing quite quickly. Though, that could be a personality problem (-_-)

Merutomopark.jp covers atmeltomo's weak points pretty well: it has a filter to defend against the horny people (which actually caught me out when I was writing my profile... Though I've no idea what I wrote to make it do that), and the site is almost entirely ad-free. Unfortunately Merutomopark has a much reduced user base, but nonetheless, the two posts I made there have gotten a fair number of replies.

One slight problem with merutomopark is the lack of categories. You can post by age or region, but if you have a specific question or topic you want to go through, there isn't going to be a separate board for that. The other significant missing feature is notifications. When someone sends you a message, you wont know until you log back into merutomopark.

To summarise, if you're looking to chat to a Japanese person right now and don't want to use a chat room, atmeltomo is the place to be (once you kill the adverts), and it's sister site atskype.jp is possibly even better in that respect. If you're more patient and just want an email friend, I think merutomopark is a better bet.

That said, if you're a beginner, there loads of English-language penpal sites (which you don't need my help to find), some of which may have some Japanese people on, though I'll mention Japan-guide.com again, because I had some success** with it.

*or those prepared to use a dictionary to guide themselves through the registration process

**Not that I'm a big proponent of using penpal sites for finding spouses, but I'd say that a wife and child is a pretty big success

Learn Japanese by Email! (and VOIP, IM etc.)

Learning Japanese by pen-friends/email-friends...

Pros:

• Learn Japanese as it exists in its natural environment
• Almost no previous experience necessary
• Can pick up slang words
• Meet truly interesting people from interesting places
• Learn anywhere, any time

Cons:

• Some pen friends may object to your spouse* 
• May pick up words mismatched to your gender
• Can pick up slang words

I've maintained a long time that getting a pen friend -or now we're in the digital age, an email friend- is among the best ways of learning a language. My personal plan for learning Chinese was basically: buy a book and audio CD that teaches the basics, then find mail-friends online.

To be honest, I never ended up learning Chinese all that long, but then Japanese has to take precedence in my life. Maybe when I've settled into Japan, I'll start up the Chinese again. I digress, but still, if you're interested, I feel I got on pretty well as a beginner with just those two resources: the beginner's book, and mail-friends**.

The great thing about email friends is that they cost you nothing (unless you end up marrying one of them... Whoops!), and even if they don't teach you, you're still learning.

In fact, as much as I want to like people for trying to teach me, its those email friends that correct me every sentence that I end up emailing the least often. I've taken a very 適当 (casual) approach that probably has more to do with passively absorbing what sounds right than actually putting in effort and being proper.

In any case, if you want to learn how to speak proper Japanese, you're going to want to read books, not chat to random people... If you can't read books yet, then its probably too early to worry about speaking properly, unless you want to do business in Japan, or ask your girlfriend's dad if its OK it to marry his daughter (shoot there's another thing I forgot to do!)...

But even so, email friends are helpful at pretty much any level of ability.

The only thing I would say against email friends is that I get a hell of a lot higher uptake from girls. I don't mind this (though my wife might), but it does mean that I'm not absorbing whatever language usage is more common amongst my own gender. The other thing, which I feel is related, is that many of these email friends will stop emailing as soon as I tell them I have a wife.

This lead me more recently to just omit that fact until asked... Certainly it means you can get a bit more practice in before it comes up, but in actuality I suspect its better to make it one of the first things to say so that you can find the email friends that are actually looking for friendship and save yourself some bother at the same time.

To close, I think its also worth pointing out that its never been a better time for gathering some email friends, with mobile internet as its current price, and email-capable mobiles, you can easily afford to do this anywhere. Free Japanese support, wherever you want, whenever you want, from native speakers of the language.



* if you're lucky, your spouse won't object to your pen friends ;)
   by the way, I'm interested in hearing if anyone else seems to find they lose a lot of email friends on account of having a spouse, because it seems very strange to me... Please comment!

** on second thoughts, I should add online dictionaries to the list of necessities, but online dictionaries are far easier to find than good pen friends or good books.

Google is reading my (Japanese) mind

Is anyone else seeing Japanese ads on YouTube? I don't mean a YouTube video of a Japanese ad*. I'm actually getting Japanese ads (given the previous link, ironically) for the Japanese coffee brand Georgia (a Coca cola brand).

At first, I thought that maybe YouTube has erroneously got my language as Japanese, but no, its still English. OK, and I still get English ads too. And to top it all, the Japanese ad preceded an English video...

My guess right now is that it has something to do with my posting Japanese into a video I uploaded**, which apart from having a Japanese title, also has Japanese in the subtitles and description (it took far more work than it was worth to make that).

So, of course, YouTube isn't reading my mind, but it damn well feels like it sometimes. I'm kind of impressed that Google's system can (to some degree) be aware of my fluency in Japanese***. On the other hand that is seriously wasteful advertising, given that I'd have to be really, really determined to get hold of that coffee over here... And anyway, my loyalty is with Boss, and that has nothing to do with the taste!


*Gotta love Tommy Lee Jones

** its completely irrelevant here, but here's a link if you're that inquisitive...

*** Or this is happening to everyone, and I don't know it yet. Or it really is a bug.

Hanwriting reevaluation

Having used hanwriting for android a little more extensively, I've decided that its physical keyboard support is terrible after all. I was already dubious about it, but what really kills it for me is the way it provides suggestions.

For English, hanwriting's suggestions are OK, and although a bit fiddly, you can kind of get around stupid suggestions by simply dismissing them.

For Japanese however, you need the suggestions to convert your hiragana into kanji, and the only way to do this is to either accept the default suggestion, or physically press the kanji that you want to use. In other words, there is no way to select the kanji using a physical keyboard.

In essence this means that writing Japanese text will sound like "hack hack hack - tap - hack hack hack - tap - " etc. Not that the noise annoys me, its the constant flipping between typing and poking that I can't get used to. After all, once you've taken your fingers off the keyboard to poke the screen, you've got to get your hands back into the typing position by finding the F and J buttons, which somehow feels like a huge impediment to the fluidity to writing something.

For the sake of being able to actually write an email to my wife without going insane, hanwriting is no longer my default IME.

That said, if you spend much time looking up complicated Japanese characters, hanwriting still has its handy kanjipad.

EDIT： Got an email back from the developer, apparently the next version will be clear of these bugs! On the other hand, that means I might be obliged to write a rereevaluation post... I've really done it to death already.

Looking forward to that update though!

Japanese kanji with Hanwriting, again

So, I've had a good long while playing with hanwriting  now, and I think its worth mentioning a couple of points:

First, a little tip on hard keyboards:
It can be annoying when using a hardware keyboard to type, when hanwriting decides to autocorrect the word you typed in (hanwriting will become "handwriting"). However, you can circumvent this problem by pressing an arrow key instead of the spacebar or punctuation, and this immediately dismisses the suggestions.

Secondly a new gripe of mine:
I've noticed that, despite hanwriting's superb ability at recognising complicated characters, there are some face-palmingly easy characters that it seems to have trouble with:

千　柔

perhaps unsurprisingly the first of those was quite easy in aedict's kanjipad, though there is something about the second one that I just can't seem to get right in either program.

Also, for a program that professes to be a handwriting app, its pretty appalling at hiragana.

That said, hanwriting is STILL my default IME at the moment; to me, the advantages still outweigh the drawbacks, and by a fair margin too.

Japan Radio Review: FM Hirakata

So I mentioned some time back how I'd been fiddling with getting internet Radio working with Android, but I've also been doing some tinkering and made a website with links to live stations in japan. More on that another time, perhaps.

Principally I've been listening to FM Hirakata. My goal here is to learn Japanese while doing other things (usually work, programming or translating*).

FM Hirakata is a fairly good mix between talk and music, and here in the UK, my listening times often coincide with the Hirakata top 30, which generally airs from about 1pm GMT and again at around 7pm GMT, but check the link for the exact JST times if you're interested, as it varies.

You might be thinking that if you're keen on learning Japanese that picking a station so heavy on music isn't terribly helpful... To an extent, you'd be right, music is a terrible, terrible way of learning Japanese. Obscure language and concepts that you're almost never going to use in conversation litter music.

What I would argue (and this may well just go for me) is that I really can't passively take in that much Japanese in one go. After a few minutes my brain has completely blocked the radio out. Its at times like this I switch over to FM hirakata, and like pickled ginger cleansing the palate, my brain is able to take on Japanese again.

With that in mind, the fact that I find most J-pop pretty... Well, terrible... Doesn't really matter all that much. Though I can imagine there are lots of people out there who would be totally horrified by the idea of switching over to a Japanese chart show**. Then, I also quite like to have an idea of what is going on culturally in Japan, which also takes an edge off of it.


*You might be thinking that it is strange that I differentiate between "work" and "translating"... Ironically, the reason for this is that I get paid for freelance translating, whereas my "work" is my PhD, for which my funding has run out.. Nevertheless, I spend far more time on my PhD than translating.

**Indeed, even for me, the very mention of AKB48 is enough to warrant a scramble to change station, find the mute button, or failing that, run screaming from the room.