http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com How to "Get Used to" Japanese Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:56:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 完成！ I’ve completed the move to my own domain: howtojaponese.com! Click on the image to head on over and check it out.   http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/17/how-to-japonese/ Getting closer. I’m working on importing SQL right now but am having trouble getting it to recognize Japanese characters. Anyone know what character set I should be using to import? UTF8 didn’t work. Ascii? Working this close to the code has me amazed that we as a species made it ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/12/help/ Well, it’s time for me to make an honest woman of this…er, blog. I’m taking a short break to move it over to its own domain so that I will have more space for photos and will be able to more easily make backups. I’m pretty technologically illiterate, so I’m ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/10/time-to-move/   During the early-90s Nintendo of America was infamous for adjusting games to fit their strict content guidelines. They changed graphics, dialogue, anything that didn’t fit within their standards.  Thanks to younger American video game developers, raw language and content in games isn’t much of a problem anymore; companies can basically ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/08/p231/ Although tonkatsu is a good hangover cure, I was unsure whether I could actually hold them down yesterday – I was suffering from the wicked aftereffects of yesterday’s excellent hanami. After returning to human form, I remembered Maisen’s 限定 circular sandwiches in the GranSta in the basement of Tokyo Station. ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/06/tonkatsu-update-part-deux/ When you speak Japanese, what are your hands doing? In the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that when foreigners speak Japanese, many of them seem to have a wicked case of what I’ve termed “charades hands.” We all wave our hands like Stan the used boat salesman from Monkey ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/03/hands/   This is a term that is translated consistently in nearly every video game. 操作(そうさ) means “controls.” It’s a combination of 操る(あやつる) and 作る(つくる). 操る means “to control a device/vehicle/something.” It can be translated flexibly as “pilot,” “drive,” and “operate.” 操作 can be translated this way, too, but only when it ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/01/p229/ So you want to translate video games, eh? Well, first I’d strongly suggest that you pursue translation in other fields. Patents pay well. So do contracts. And they’re both easier to translate than video games. Yes, the startup requirements are a little bit higher. Both fields have large amounts of ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/04/01/video-game-translation/   This kanji is pronounced だいだい, and I bet you can figure out the meaning pretty easily if I give it to you in this set: 赤, 橙, 黄, 緑, 青, 藍, 紫. Get it yet? No? Give those another quick look. Yup, it’s the kanji for orange. You see it infrequently, almost ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/03/30/p223/ This Japan Times piece about 第三ビール features none other than Chris Chuwy, the guy who runs the boozelist I’ve linked to several times. Chuwy is in fine form: "Feels like I’ve just woken up and need to brush my teeth" (Chuwy on Reisei, a dai-san brewed from yellow-pea protein, 5 ... http://howtojapanese.blogsome.com/2009/03/28/p226/