J-Talk Hiragana/Romaji Converter Updates

Back to the Kanji Translator

Copy/Paste (DEC 11)

Now you can copy and paste in the spaced/brackets options and cleanly put the text into Word etc. (Apparently Windows has no way of copying and pasting just the visible text, wtf?). You'll need Flash for this to work. A weird requirement, I know, but hey I'm just the messenger.

If this doesn't work for you let me know.

Latest Changes (DEC 10)

There should be major improvements in the accuracy of the outputted English and name lookup. The lookup is also smarter about trying to find words that have multiple meanings, have the same kanji but different meanings, or have been written in hiragana but should have been written in kanji. If you find inaccuracies please use the 'detailed' lookup and report it to me.

Latest Changes (DEC 6) and FAQ

  • The system now defaults to romaji. This ensures that those people with older browsers can always read the output.
  • Line breaks should work now.
  • Copy/Paste: if you are having problems with copying and pasting it's because Word (and perhaps others) is trying to be helpful by copying the HTML and then styling it. Unfortunately, it's not smart enough to know that some of the text is meant to be hidden. Here's the solution: Save as a plain text document and copy into that first. Pure text documents don't try to use the formatting.
  • Fixed a bug where unknown words/kanji weren't appearing at all.
  • Discovered that the translator doesn't recognize the word サージェント as in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Changes

Apart from a complete rewrite of all the code - which will enable me to deal with requests for changes somewhat better - the main changes are:

  • A much better interface: you can rotate through romaji, hiragana, etc by clicking the rotate button
  • The popups are displayed better - meaning I can add more information there
  • Furigana (readings above/below the Kanji) should work on all modern browsers without the need for a special extension
  • Hiragana/Katakana words should now show the English - the previous version essentially ignored the English in such words. See note below.
  • English output should be more accurate. See note below.
  • Romaji should reflect standard romaji somewhat better: the particle 'wa' now will appear as wa rather than ha.

Notes and Bugs

  • Small tsu is not rendered correctly in romaji. So it shows i'te rather than the correct itte etc. I'm working on a fix for this.
  • Common particle style words such as to, ga do not get translated. These will be added in due course.
  • Occasionally words do not have their English appear. If you notice such a word could you send me the details. See below.
  • The converter occasionally makes mistakes. The most common seems to be hitori/futari (one/two people) being rendered as 'ichinin', 'ninin'. This is not an easy fix, and the fix is scheduled for sometime. i.e. this century.

Reporting Problems

  1. Please check if it's a known issue such as above. If so be patient, I'm working on it.
  2. Is it a display bug? If you are using IE6, it's likely a problem with that browser. Update to Firefox if possible. Otherwise, try to send me a screenshot of the issue.
  3. Translation issue: send me the complete Japanese sentence that you tried to translate and let me know the problem.

Old Version

If you are finding major problems with the new version you can use the old version that is here:
http://oldnihongo.j-talk.com/parser/
Note that this will not remain here for more than a few weeks so report the problem so I can fix it before it disappears.

Contact

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!