About | Problems | Web Page Converter| J-talk Blog | Contact | About the System
Updates
The converter has just undergone a major UPDATE (Dec 1, 2009). Read about issues here.About
The site was built, programmed and designed by me, Gary Ross.
Problems
Really, I found a bug
OK, redo what you did. Then with the mail address that appears (or the one at the bottom of this page), tell me the problem:
Be specific:
Operating system, browser, the kind of problem, the text you tried to parse plus the option you set. Also, click the 'demo' link, let me know if that works or not.
What's up with the bold N
This is so you can distinguish between the syllabic N = ん, and the N of na - ni - nu - ne - no (being unbolded).
Eh? Well, if you see Junichirou, you don't know whether it's
JU + NI + CHI or JU + N + I + CHI
But when you see: Junichirou, you'll correctly call Mr.Koizumi: JU N I CHI RO U
Which browser do you recommend?
Short Answer: Safari, Firefox, or Camino
Long Answer: I haven't tested extensively on a Windows machine, but bar browser bugs and viruses latest versions of Explorer (7 or 8) should work fine, but Firefox is the one I test on.
Why do I get garbage characters?
The short answer is that you have an old or poor browser. First you should panic. Next, you should check the main page first sentence. I have put the word 'kanji' in kanji (Escher eat your heart out). If that word doesn't appear correctly, it's likely that your browser is not encoding correctly. Should be easy to solve - all you need to do is go to the browser menu and change the encoding to Unicode(utf-8). That will hopefully correct your problems.
Still not working?
Sorry, but the only option is to update your browser. The latest version of Firefox has very good multilanguage support on Windows, but read the other faq before deciding the best one.
Web Page Converter
Why did you remove the Web Page Converter
Ha! It's back. Read below.
How does it work?
Just enter any text starting with http. It only does the rollover system. So you have to rollover the kanji with your mouse. You can follow links too. Just click and it will parse the next page
Beta
Note this is a beta-version, so it will have some bugs, but you can help improve it! If you find a website it seems to destroy, just email me the URL and I'll see what is causing the problem. See mail at bottom of this page.
J-Talk
J-talk.com Blog
J-talk.com is a Japanese/Foreigners area to post blogs, articles, Japan related stuff, news, discussions, etc. The focus on the site will be Japan from the point of view of people who live here/have an interest. The majority of those are of course Japanese themselves, but I want to reflect the significant contribution that 'foreigners' make to the society too. Essentially, intelligent contributions whatever your viewpoint. Sign up here.
Kanji Flash Card System
I've finished developing a Kanji/Vocab flash card system that will automatically test you based on how well you know the kanji. Here.
About the System
How does the parsing work?
The main engine is based on Chasen from Naist in Nara, which is a command line Japanese analyser. Parsing English is a trivial issue (look for the spaces) but Japanese is a massive challenge.And the vocab?
This comes from Jim Breen's Edict Project - another excellent Japan related resource.
What did you use?
The programming was done in PHP with PCRE for the parsing, and the database is MySQL. It was developed on a Mac Pro 8-core running an Apache 2 server on OSX (Snow Leopard), using mainly BBEdit. The server itself is a dedicated FreeBSD monster. Music by House of Love & Supergrass. The location is Mojo Cafe. Kanazawa, which has the world's best scones and cakes. Thank-you Hisako, you're the best.
Contact me
Will you give me your code to use on my site?
Probably not.
Why not?
Hundreds of hours have gone into this spread over a number of years, and it helps finance the cost of running the server. If you really would like it on your site, you can still contact me though.
You can send me an email for questions/problems/requests/offers of jobs/offers of cash here: nihongo_2009[the_at_mark]j-w3.com. Use your common sense for what [the_at_mark] means!