I've often spouted the virtues of the katana (just how I got into those conversations to start with is something of a puzzle, now I look back on it): the dedication of its craftsmen, the sharpness of its blade, and its ability to cut through all sorts of unlikely things...
However, apart from what I've heard on the TV and radio, it turns out I'm not really all that clued up on the "mighty" katana.
It wasn't until I happened upon this video that I realised the limits of my education in sword-crafting (which, as you might imagine, are very limited).
The guy makes some excellent points; most of the dirty-work on a Japanese battlefield would have been done with the spear or other weapons, and the functional aspects of the craftsmanship that went into the swords was in no way unique to Japan.
The first point I should really have been aware of from Jansen's "The Making of Modern Japan", and other things I've read. As with Europe, technological advancements often came in the form "if we've got a longer spear than the enemy, we'll be able to hit them before they can hit us", and alongside firearms, the spear was a staple of weaponry as the warring kingdoms period drew to an end.
That said, I'm certain that if you're a foot soldier with a massive pike, and concentrating on hitting the enemy in front of you, several hundred men in heavy armour wielding katanas running into your flank is going to ruin your day.
What confuses me about historical Japanese warfare is the failure to adopt the shield. Even a katana is going to stop against a well made shield, and while you block the blow, you could be eyeing up your opponent for somewhere to stick your own short-sword. A quick search on internet forums suggests that the lack of shields was down to 1) lack of supply of metals, 2) the historic preference of samurai for horse archery [which kind of precluded the use of a shield], 3) the possible lack of honour associated with hiding behind a shield, 4) the Japanese armour plating, particularly on the shoulder (the sode), was functional as a small shield. 5) "shield? You must be referring to the peasants"
which of those reasons are actually relevant, I've no idea. number 4 seems somewhat dubious to me, as I've never seen a sode large enough to be really protective; there always seems to be an opening in the armour around the elbow joint. Plus how are you to deflect blows below your waist? You'd have to use your sword, which makes counter attacking more difficult...
That said, my weapons of choice would be the firearm with a katana as back up. Or, if I'm lucky the commander will decide to simply not fight.
EDIT: Oh, and for what its worth, I actually own a katana. Considering I only paid 70 quid for it, I'm guessing its not authentic, but it looks cool, and lets face it, that's the only reason you're going to own a sword these days... I hope...
Friday, April 19, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Handwriting with "Hanwriting"
Summary of hanwriting with multiling for the impatient:
Pros
The weather was lovely yesterday evening, so I used that as an excuse to go outside and open up "二十四の瞳" (or "24 eyes". Incidently, amazed that it was for sale on amazon.co.uk), thus I had the opportunity for a good play with Hanwriting yesterday, while translating the book.
That said, 二十四の瞳 isn't the hardest going of books, with most difficult words written in hiragana (its somewhat a refreshing change from Natsume Soseki's Bocchan, which had me stumped pretty much every couple of lines). And so it is that I didn't really get to test out hanwriting's kanji pad very much. However, I got a good feel for its other functionalities.
To start, let's talk hardware keyboards! I love my bluetooth keyboard, and use it more often than I use the software keyboard. However, multiling (which Hanwriting plugs into) is pretty poor at integrating it. Setting hardware keyboard to ON in the Android input method menu turns the software keyboard OFF. That's all fine and dandy, but there is no way of switching multiling's language quickly between English and Japanese when the software keyboard is off.
Fortunately there is a work-around (at least for my setup): I find that by turning the hardware keyboard OFF in the Android input method menu that I can still use the hardware keyboard, but because the software keyboard doesn't disappear, I can also swipe the software spacebar to change languages quickly. I'd still rather have a handy "あa" button like on Google's Japanese IME though...
I also found that set up was a bit arduous. Nothing too taxing, but it is necessary to download multiling, the Japanese plugin for multling and the hanwriting plugin, and I also decided I'd need the English dictionary plugin too... 4 packages to set up a keyboard? Seems a bit much, but then again, I think multiling needs this modularity. I did find, however that its best to install all those plugins BEFORE running the multiling program, or setting the keyboard to multiling, otherwise the plugins aren't recognised.
As for the dictionaries themselves, they don't appear to be as comprehensive as Google's (which are pretty spectacular, I think). However, I think the multiling dictionaries are passable.
In my opinion, these issues are all adequately offset by the handwriting function, which is really invaluable. Though it is worthwhile to be aware that (somewhat infrequently) the kanji pad will not recognise when your finger has moved, and the next time you press the kanji pad a straight line will be drawn from your finger to where your previous swipe started. This is pretty annoying, but you can usually tell it is about to happen, and just redo your last stroke.
Overall then, multiling & hanwriting has some pretty rough edges, but it is definitely functional, and I get the feeling that I will be using it extensively from now on.
EDIT [25/04/2013]: Having used this IME more extensively, I've come across some major usability issues, see here and here.
Pros
- handwriting function has very good specificity!
- reasonable dictionaries
- switching between languages is easy
- some minor, infrequent bugs with inputing strokes
compatibility with hardware keyboards not that great- compatibility with hardware keyboards is terrible! (See edit)
- setting up for the first time requires some patience (if you have the patience to read the rest of this article, I'm guessing you'll do fine, however)
The weather was lovely yesterday evening, so I used that as an excuse to go outside and open up "二十四の瞳" (or "24 eyes". Incidently, amazed that it was for sale on amazon.co.uk), thus I had the opportunity for a good play with Hanwriting yesterday, while translating the book.
That said, 二十四の瞳 isn't the hardest going of books, with most difficult words written in hiragana (its somewhat a refreshing change from Natsume Soseki's Bocchan, which had me stumped pretty much every couple of lines). And so it is that I didn't really get to test out hanwriting's kanji pad very much. However, I got a good feel for its other functionalities.
To start, let's talk hardware keyboards! I love my bluetooth keyboard, and use it more often than I use the software keyboard. However, multiling (which Hanwriting plugs into) is pretty poor at integrating it. Setting hardware keyboard to ON in the Android input method menu turns the software keyboard OFF. That's all fine and dandy, but there is no way of switching multiling's language quickly between English and Japanese when the software keyboard is off.
Fortunately there is a work-around (at least for my setup): I find that by turning the hardware keyboard OFF in the Android input method menu that I can still use the hardware keyboard, but because the software keyboard doesn't disappear, I can also swipe the software spacebar to change languages quickly. I'd still rather have a handy "あa" button like on Google's Japanese IME though...
I also found that set up was a bit arduous. Nothing too taxing, but it is necessary to download multiling, the Japanese plugin for multling and the hanwriting plugin, and I also decided I'd need the English dictionary plugin too... 4 packages to set up a keyboard? Seems a bit much, but then again, I think multiling needs this modularity. I did find, however that its best to install all those plugins BEFORE running the multiling program, or setting the keyboard to multiling, otherwise the plugins aren't recognised.
As for the dictionaries themselves, they don't appear to be as comprehensive as Google's (which are pretty spectacular, I think). However, I think the multiling dictionaries are passable.
In my opinion, these issues are all adequately offset by the handwriting function, which is really invaluable. Though it is worthwhile to be aware that (somewhat infrequently) the kanji pad will not recognise when your finger has moved, and the next time you press the kanji pad a straight line will be drawn from your finger to where your previous swipe started. This is pretty annoying, but you can usually tell it is about to happen, and just redo your last stroke.
Overall then, multiling & hanwriting has some pretty rough edges, but it is definitely functional, and I get the feeling that I will be using it extensively from now on.
EDIT [25/04/2013]: Having used this IME more extensively, I've come across some major usability issues, see here and here.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Android: Writing Japanese Characters (esp. Kanji)
Up until now I've not made much use of Nikolay Elenkov's Kanji Recognizer. I've had the general hunch that it was better than aedict's stock drawing recognition. However, since I primarily use the Japanese dictionary on the way to work, or otherwise wifi-less, I've not gotten much use out of Nikolay's WWWJDIC dictionary.
I'm not sure which recognition engine aedict uses, but Kanji Recognizer apparently uses the Zinnia engine with the Tomoe dataset, which is something that I've fiddled with in the past.
My hunch that Kanji Recognizer is superior has been kind of muted by the fact that with my old HTC Tattoo, changing applications was a bit tedious. Now I tend to use my Nexus 7 for translating (its so much faster!), which has a much quicker switch windows function, the idea of switching app every time I come across an annoying character doesn't put me off like it used to.
I thought I'd further test Kanji Recognizer by pitting it against aedict's drawing recognition. Using aedict as the benchmark (because I love that app), any character aedict failed to reproduce, I would attempt in Kanji Recognizer. Here is a list of some characters that Kanji Recognizer managed that aedict failed at*:
頸 腕 割 適 堅
OK, so that's not a particularly big list, which actually goes to show that aedict still fares pretty well, because I tested an awful lot of characters.
Now that I think about it, I also talked about an app called Hanwriting some time back. It was pretty awful for Japanese when I tried it, but it appears to have developed a lot since then. Now it is the hanwriting plugin integrated in the the multiling keyboard.
I tried all of the above characters without any trouble, and it even came up with some that neither aedict or Kanji Recognizer could manage*, such as 梟.
Since I've only just tried this, I'm not going to rave too much about how great that is, but it could be nice to have an IME like this that means I don't need to switch apps, and can stay in aedict for my dictionary needs, even when writing complicated characters. My first impression is good, but I also noticed that its significantly more difficult to draw characters in the smaller space they give you (though, of course, this is less of a problem now I'm using a Nexus 7).
Its nice to see such a broad range of support for Japanese getting well established on Android. I'm interested to see where it will all go from here!
*(or rather, I failed to input correctly into aedict that Kanji Recognizer identified regardless)
I'm not sure which recognition engine aedict uses, but Kanji Recognizer apparently uses the Zinnia engine with the Tomoe dataset, which is something that I've fiddled with in the past.
My hunch that Kanji Recognizer is superior has been kind of muted by the fact that with my old HTC Tattoo, changing applications was a bit tedious. Now I tend to use my Nexus 7 for translating (its so much faster!), which has a much quicker switch windows function, the idea of switching app every time I come across an annoying character doesn't put me off like it used to.
I thought I'd further test Kanji Recognizer by pitting it against aedict's drawing recognition. Using aedict as the benchmark (because I love that app), any character aedict failed to reproduce, I would attempt in Kanji Recognizer. Here is a list of some characters that Kanji Recognizer managed that aedict failed at*:
頸 腕 割 適 堅
OK, so that's not a particularly big list, which actually goes to show that aedict still fares pretty well, because I tested an awful lot of characters.
Now that I think about it, I also talked about an app called Hanwriting some time back. It was pretty awful for Japanese when I tried it, but it appears to have developed a lot since then. Now it is the hanwriting plugin integrated in the the multiling keyboard.
I tried all of the above characters without any trouble, and it even came up with some that neither aedict or Kanji Recognizer could manage*, such as 梟.
Since I've only just tried this, I'm not going to rave too much about how great that is, but it could be nice to have an IME like this that means I don't need to switch apps, and can stay in aedict for my dictionary needs, even when writing complicated characters. My first impression is good, but I also noticed that its significantly more difficult to draw characters in the smaller space they give you (though, of course, this is less of a problem now I'm using a Nexus 7).
Its nice to see such a broad range of support for Japanese getting well established on Android. I'm interested to see where it will all go from here!
*(or rather, I failed to input correctly into aedict that Kanji Recognizer identified regardless)
Monday, April 15, 2013
Japanese Radio & Android (AKA My Tattoo is Getting Old)
Lately I've been listening to a lot of Japanese radio. Not only does it alleviate some of the tedium of work, but it also helps improve my Japanese simultaneously. Brilliant.
Of course, support for doing this on Android is excellent. I believe I only downloaded a couple of programs before settling on TuneIn (that's not to say that TuneIn is the best... Just that it took me almost no time at all to find a decent internet radio program). The internet radio has a search function which can be very quickly used to identify Japanese radio stations (I primarily use FM Hirakata and BanBan Radio, perhaps a discussion for another time).
My rapidly ageing HTC Tattoo, however, was an altogether uglier case. The HTC Tattoo still runs Android 1.6, and virtually no one makes apps for it anymore (myself included, for the most part). I downloaded a variety of music players and other apps in the hope of simply being able to stream from the station's URL...
Eventually I settled on mediaU, which has all the functionality that I use with tuneIn (station search and favourites). It's a bit ugly, but it works on my elderly Tattoo, and that's good enough for me!
Unfortunately, I'd intended to use this set up to listen to the radio on the way to Southampton over the weekend, and didn't realise how much mobile network eats the Tattoo's battery (which, by the way, tends only to last a day after a couple of years of use). I think I got about 30 minutes of radio out of it before deciding that I'd best conserve the battery... But it was a good 30 minutes with only occasional cut-outs, and better quality that I'd expect considering I was travelling by car. This really is a testament to the stability of mediaU and the HTC Tattoo... And to some extent the network coverage Orange offer in Dorset...
Much as I've enjoyed my Tattoo over the last couple of years, it seems it is reaching the end of its useful life... Android 1.6 is becoming increasingly neglected by developers, and I wonder how long it will be before I lose some "critical" functionality like aedict.
That said, I'm more inclined to get a new battery than dispose of it. Then, perhaps when it finally does die, I'll frame it to show my grandchildren...
"Back when I was a young'n, we had to lug these bricks around! The batteries only lasted a coupl'o' days and you couldn't even plug them into your brain!"
Of course, support for doing this on Android is excellent. I believe I only downloaded a couple of programs before settling on TuneIn (that's not to say that TuneIn is the best... Just that it took me almost no time at all to find a decent internet radio program). The internet radio has a search function which can be very quickly used to identify Japanese radio stations (I primarily use FM Hirakata and BanBan Radio, perhaps a discussion for another time).
My rapidly ageing HTC Tattoo, however, was an altogether uglier case. The HTC Tattoo still runs Android 1.6, and virtually no one makes apps for it anymore (myself included, for the most part). I downloaded a variety of music players and other apps in the hope of simply being able to stream from the station's URL...
Eventually I settled on mediaU, which has all the functionality that I use with tuneIn (station search and favourites). It's a bit ugly, but it works on my elderly Tattoo, and that's good enough for me!
Unfortunately, I'd intended to use this set up to listen to the radio on the way to Southampton over the weekend, and didn't realise how much mobile network eats the Tattoo's battery (which, by the way, tends only to last a day after a couple of years of use). I think I got about 30 minutes of radio out of it before deciding that I'd best conserve the battery... But it was a good 30 minutes with only occasional cut-outs, and better quality that I'd expect considering I was travelling by car. This really is a testament to the stability of mediaU and the HTC Tattoo... And to some extent the network coverage Orange offer in Dorset...
Much as I've enjoyed my Tattoo over the last couple of years, it seems it is reaching the end of its useful life... Android 1.6 is becoming increasingly neglected by developers, and I wonder how long it will be before I lose some "critical" functionality like aedict.
That said, I'm more inclined to get a new battery than dispose of it. Then, perhaps when it finally does die, I'll frame it to show my grandchildren...
"Back when I was a young'n, we had to lug these bricks around! The batteries only lasted a coupl'o' days and you couldn't even plug them into your brain!"
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Flyjin
I was thinking about something I heard about the word "gaijin" supposedly being offensive, and happened across the term "Flyjin". Needless to say it tickled me sufficiently to write this post...
"Never believe everything you read in the newspapers"... Is that an excuse to leave, or to not leave? I guess it depends on perspective.
"Never believe everything you read in the newspapers"... Is that an excuse to leave, or to not leave? I guess it depends on perspective.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Japanese on the Google/Asus Nexus 7
If you're reading this, you're probably already aware of aedict and ankidroid (my two favourite apps). Kudos to the development teams of those programs for keeping Android 1.6 compatibility so my old HTC phone is still useful!
I think its probably also worth mentioning that Japanese support is much better in Android 2+ (including the version on the Nexus 7). I use the built in Japanese IME, which works spectacularly, except that my UK keyboard buttons aren't mapped properly in it see edit below.
One thing I did find strange is that the built-in document viewer doesn't allow the selection of words in documents. This is a real pain if I want to read a Japanese document on the train, as I have to manually type the word into aedict... Assuming I know the kanji involved.
To fix this, I downloaded a number of document viewers and editors, but the best by far was Kingsoft Office. Japanese input works perfectly in it, with the exception of when you do go to select a word to copy it, the whole line can get selected, because the app only recognises spaces and punctuation as delimiters for words... Unfortunately, this makes the process of copying words from Japanese documents a bit cumbersome, and in that respect, I've failed in my original goal, but at least in the process I've found an excellent word processing app*.
*If you're wondering, yes, you can do word processing on a Nexus, it doesn't take long for the fingers to adapt to a keyboard the size of the screen. Try and get a keyboard with a tab key, though!
EDIT (15th April 2013): Regarding mapping of UK keyboards in Google Japanese Input, go to the "Language & input" menu, then hit the settings button beside "Google Japanese Input". Then tap "Preferences for hardware keyboards". Setting it to the system default worked wonders for me!
EDIT (15th April 2013): Regarding mapping of UK keyboards in Google Japanese Input, go to the "Language & input" menu, then hit the settings button beside "Google Japanese Input". Then tap "Preferences for hardware keyboards". Setting it to the system default worked wonders for me!
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