Why Mac users should learn Japanese

Or was it the other way round? Yes, sorry. This post is about why Japanese language lovers should (learn to) use Mac.

I got my MacBook Pro roughly one year and a half ago, when my HP laptop timely abandoned me when I was writing my BA thesis. God bless external hard disks. Anyway, it had been the third time it had completely broken down for no apparent reason, which became the excuse to get it over with Windows once and for all.

So I got this Macintosh and it was not long before I discovered there was a built-in English-to-Japanese, Japanese-to-English, Japanese synonyms and Japanese encyclopedia dictionary by Apple.

(You can see it here on one official apple website; by the way, I knew a different etymology for Macintosh)

JP synonyms

EN-JP, JP-EN

 What a delightful discovery!

What's more, those dictionaries are the good ones. I mean, the Japanese encyclopedia, for instance, is the Daijisen. It's the same I have on my portable electronic dictionary (a Casio EX-Word acquired in Japan in september 2008).

Daijisen

A japanese electronic dictionary's keyboard

It's really the same: from the following two pictures you can see the Apple Dictionary Daijisen yields the exact same results the portable Casio Daijisen does for one uncommon nominalized verb, 造り込み (tsukurikomi) I stumbled upon on the Autodesk website. By the way, I still have no clue what it means, since there is no entry in the bilingual dictionary and the monolingual encyclopedia claims it has do to with katanas. In an software/architecture context...?

Casio's Daijisen

Apple's Daijisen

Needless to say, when you study or use Japanese daily, having a state of the art electronic dictionary* is about survival: the fact that it is light, portable and allows you to draw kanji when you can't guess the reading (a feature only the latest versions have) means you are hardly ever in trouble with the language, because it has the answers – provided you can query it and read the solution. I used it every single day when in Japan, to check and learn unknown readings of ideograms on street signs, official documentation, bureaucracy, essays, newspapers and so on and so forth. It is also vital when you have to write by hand and don't remember the strokes.

But when you need to write in Japanese on your laptop, doing back and forth from your computer screen to the electronic dictionary, and having to type on two separate keyboards is annoying and time consuming.

There is a feature thanks to which you can connect your electronic dictionary to the laptop though I wouldn't really know because I didn't buy the necessary items to do that yet. (Oh, looks like an excuse to go to the other side of the world and say hi to Tokyo).

Anyway. If you have Windows, no built-in dictionaries**. Bummer. You can go on doing back and forth as described above, or use online ones. There are good tools out there. But even this complete and great online denshi jisho doesn't have all the answers, namely for tsukurikomi (I said it was uncommon!):

No entry

I still love this online tool, it has amazing features:

The online tool: specialized dictionaries

The “names and places dictionary” is just invaluable: no matter how good at japanese you are and how long you studied it, guessing people's names and place names' readings is (almost, or at least to me) impossible. Learning them all by heart, too. So when does this tool come in handy? When you have a, say, business email from someone important and don't know whether this person is a man or woman or don't know how to call them when you meet them in person. Not so small an issue in a country where calling people means saying “Hello +family name+suffix to show respect”. Resolve to adress the person with a “you” and experience at your own peril how it is unacceptable in japanese society.

It also looks wise to use this online tool before going out on a trip to unknown places: if you can recognize but not say places' names, if you get lost and want to ask for help you'll have to point to the kanji instead of just asking, which is rather inconvenient and makes you look stupid (personal experience).

But back to the main subject: if you have Macintosh, there are the built-in dictionaries!

I used to think that I had been able to activate the JP-related dictionaries only because I had added JP to my language panel, but this is not the case.

This article explains how to activate the dictionaries, and also notices that it is quite a mistery why Apple should have added only Japanese and not, say, German or Korean. You can, however, add plugins, so it is not totally impossible to have the bilingual dics you need.

The new Mac OS Lion also includes this Apple dictionary, enhanced by the newly added British Thesaurus and Dictionary. Thank you for thinking about an “European” version of English. What's next?

Mac OS Lion built-in Apple Dictionary

All three: online, Apple and electronic dictionary

*To the best of my knowledge.

**Denshi jisho in JP.

(field:empty; insert adj.) reasons to miss Tokyo (1)

A certain sense of humour 

(On Tokyo Metro Rieducational Channel)

Picture taken in 2009

We're all subject to Google Translate's whim (1)

One of my facebook contacts posted 
"WTF?" followed by:

Quantum leap is obviously not what she was talking about

 I posted back "The way you write the input makes all the difference ;-)" followed by:

It got better ;-)

Wanna localize and translate Twitter?

Now you can. Yes you! You have been able to for a while already but I didn't know. I guess this is what they call crowdsourcing and collaborative translation: like it or not, any registered user can translate Twitter pages they want to by just accessing the Twitter Translation Center.


Only one question: who revises those translations?
Because someone has to...I don't think Twitter wants a badly localized website.


Crowdsourcing is considered to be beneficial for the open source community, and this is just another example. In Twitter's case I wonder if FR-DE-JP-IT pages were initially translated by translators (professionals) though. What is sure is that if they set up a Translation Center with all its features, which has probably required some serious IT work, it's because they calculated that it would be a better investment compared to hiring translators.


Brazilian portuguese has been added to Twitter today. The whole website was translated in 3 days after the language was added, they say. This is quite impressive.


Now I might get a Twitter Account just to access this Translation Center and see for myself how it works. I'm curious. Besides, they're looking for italian translators!


Just kidding.


I bet in a few years we'll have people writing master thesis on this kind of subjects (and I would be one of them if I weren't graduating in 12 months).


This new trend is growing (slowly?) but steadily, in a direction some professionals might dislike: see how in the video they speak of "localization" but not about "speaking more than just your mother tongue" or "having excellent writing skills in your mother tongue". After all, it's not just English that is condemned to becoming Globish - all other "big" (in terms of number of speakers) languages are at risk too, and maybe in 20 years, false friends and the like will not be false friends anymore because languages will have ev(inv)olved following these trends.

XML, Migration and ID

Naturalmente appena inizia la sessione di esami io non trovo nulla di meglio da fare che migrare il mio blog. A mia discolpa però potrei dire che quando ho salvato il contenuto del "vecchio" blog per esportarlo qui, mi sono detta "vuoi vedere che sarà in formato XML?" e ci ho azzeccato! Applicazione delle materie studiate...


Scherzi a parte: ho deciso di optare per più trasparenza e pseudo professionalità. 
Ai tempi avevo iniziato a scrivere sotto il mio vero nome; poi un giorno qualcuno che non conoscevo mi ha scritto un messaggio privato su Facebook per chiedermi informazioni che sapeva che io avevo perché aveva letto il mio blog e scoperto come mi chiamo, e mi sono detta "ok, abbiamo oltrepassato un limite". E quindi avevo tolto il mio nome e lasciato solo il nickname "Peppa". Ho ricambiato idea. (E mi sono resa introvabile su Facebook :O))


In fondo è molto meglio scrivere pensando di poter essere identificati: da una parte questo comporta quasi inconsciamente un'innalzamento della qualità della scrittura (si spera) e una migliore selezione del contenuto e dei modi di esporlo. Dall'altra, se il blog piace almeno si saprà di chi è veramente. Senza parlare degli svantaggi dello scrivere anonimamente: la verità-identità viene sempre a galla, e a quel punto aver tentato di nascondersi espone molto facilmente a critiche.


Non sono così egocentrica come questo discorso suggerirebbe: questo blog non è il centro del mondo, e ho scritto troppe cose banali in proporzione a quelle interessanti, per poter sperare di far rimanere l'utente che capita qui per caso... Però ultimamente la questione dello scrivere un blog e con che identità mi ha dato da fare. A pensarci bene tra 1 anno sarò laureata, si spera che andrò a lavorare e che non smetterò di punto in bianco di scrivere quello che penso per paura di, chenneso, venir letta dai colleghi e simili e affini. Tanto vale essere sinceri - male che vada starò antipatica a qualcuno, e simpatica a qualcun altro ma almeno sarà per quello che penso. 


E non dimentico alcuni episodi molto umani di "devirtualizzazione": persone che mi leggevano che hanno deciso di chiedermi di incontrarci perché vivevamo nella stessa città o ci sarebbe stato modo di incrociarsi. I dialoghi sono sempre meglio dei monologhi :)


***
This blog has been migrated from another URL yesterday. Yesterday I also set up Apple Mail to gather all my e-mails at the same place. Oh yes, because I had just opened a new GMail account. All of a sudden. I call those "period-is-approaching-and-it-shows" kind of changes. Not that I open a new e-mail account every month.
And I was actually pleased to see that when you have to save your blog content in an exportable format, this format is XML! XML is everywhere. XML is watching you. It is pervading our lives without us even noticing it. I say pleased because I guessed it before clicking on the button "Save blog content" and saw I got it right. 


The main reason for the migration is: link this blog to a clear e-mail and identity. 
I used to blog under my true name. Then one day there was this person coming out of nowhere sending me an information request - on Facebook. How she made the link between my blog (which she was referring to) and my full name is still a mystery to me. I freaked out. So I started using a nickname.
But I changed my mind again. Guess what, nickname or not, you can find out who I am anyway. So why hide? Now I tell you my name, the place I live, what I do...you can find out who I am. (The only thing you can't do is stalk me because 1) I'm not that stupid, I take precautions 2) Even if you find my last name out, you can't track me down on Facebook. Why would you anyway, you can be annoying here by commenting every 2 minutes.)
So now there is  a tacit agreement between us - me author and you reader. Exchange of ideas is our goal. Transparency and respect are our promises.
Next year I will be out of college in the real world. If this blog keeps on being read at all, and being appreciated, I want to be recognized as being its author. If it's read by a colleague of mine and he/she ends up hating me for whatever reason, let it be. It's life, it's nothing new. What matters is that, thanks to transparency, I will have written in a manner that is appropriate and respectful.


You know what, I cherish a couple of good encounters I have made thanks to this blog: people who had been reading me and once came up with the suggestion to meet (when it was geographically possible). No, no guys and flirts, but genuine, human, enriching encounters. Because being two when you talk is usually much better than one and alone. Transparency also means enabling such things :)

Typo

And the winner for the funniest word to say "typo" (spelling and writing mistakes in editing, journalism etc.)...is?

4 ITALIAN - refuso - mean, scary and intimidating word. If you made a refuso, you are not deemed to deserve forgiveness

3 JAPANESE - タイプミス (taipu misu) - ...kinda gets the meaning across, but not evoking anything to me

2 ENGLISH - typo - casual and friendly word

1 FRENCH - coquille =typo AND shell! So cute! makes me think of the seaside...(lol)

Ok, now I'm done playing around w/ languages and emotions. Back to study.

The future looks bright (to me)

Lately I feel like I have been sleeping through most of my life and am only waking up now. Well, hopefully I'll catch up soon.

I have been reading like mad ever since this "waking up": I found blogs and tweets and web sites about localization and all what goes with this industry and can't seem to get my eyes off them. It feels like addiction.

It's highly motivating&interesting to me, and although I fail to grasp everything, I'm learning day after day, post after post, comment after comment.

Here are some concepts learned thanks to the comment made on the piece of news that Google is shutting down its MT API:

- Well....API :D

- LSP

- Deprecation

Looking forward to learn more...

By the way, this is not the only reason why future looks bright to me this morning ;)

I received my "machine translation post-editor intern" contract from my supervisor yesterday. The kind of thing that gets you in a good mood. Moreover,he's invited me to participate to a conference on translation that takes place before my start date, which I'm really flattered and excited about. Add to that my discovery about a translation and localization services provider headquartered in my beloved Bologna and you get the picture. Oh yes, very bright.

"Native English vs. Naive English"

And this I got from the "Interpreting for Europe" Facebook group. The title is not mine, even though I'd love to claim so - it's from somebody who wittingly commented on the picture "a.k.a native english vs. naive english".

Sharing it here because laughing once a day keeps the doctor away :)

Some mastered native English coupled with wittiness and interestingness

I found and read a couple of nice posts by English-mothertongue bloggers lately.

The funny thing is how I bumped into them - but unfortunately I cannot go into details because I still want to keep anonymous, although I know that some day there will be my name on the top page of this blog. Maybe.

Anyway, here they are:

What is an unconference

A localization unconference account

Penelope Trunk blog

I LOVE well-written texts. If there were only skilled writers in the world, translators' life would be much better.

Enjoy!

Quote of somebody who knows better.

Translation studies class this morning.

The teacher, Mr. Hewson, warned us.

"There are in French 25 ways of saying car in argot. In English, there are none. Are you still sure you want to become a translator?"

Ou encore: "Le lecteur de traductions est peut-êre ignorant, mais il n'est pas imbécile". (cit. Lederer).

Speaking about simultaneous interpreting

..."there are reflexes that have to be trained, like complete attention, suspicion and paranoia"

(From a Conference Interpreting Forum online)

Why suits exist.

Many middle-aged man still think "smart casual" means their old school rugby shirt; even though it now covers their waist like a swimming cap stretched over a watermelon.

That's why suits were invented: to make it simpler for men to dress in ways that don't startle wildlife.

(The Times, March 2nd, 2010)