How to use Japanese Fonts?

KAWSquared · 08-22-2008, 02:02 AM

Hey everyone, noob here.

I'm having trouble understanding how to use Japanese fonts. I downloaded some fonts from here and installed them. They use characters from the Japanese language from the key you press (i.e. If you press the "A" key it'll create a Japanese character) (i don't know how to completely explain this, so feel free to see for yourself).

Problem is, I don't know how to use them properly. I don't know how to read Japanese (don't ask why I'm using these fonts :P) so I can't spell real words with the fonts. When I translate a word into Japanese and then set the font to one of the Japanese fonts, they come out as boxes.

So as you can see, i don't know exactly what to do. Can anybody shed some light on my situation? It'd be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

CkretAjint · 08-22-2008, 10:23 AM

Boxes mean the character you selected isn't included in the font your using. As for not knowing Japanese and 'typing' with it, can't help you there. Perhaps be-friend a Japanese guy?

Danger_Mouse · 08-22-2008, 11:27 AM

http://www.freejapaneselessons.com/

dbh2ppa · 08-27-2008, 04:36 AM

First of all, those fonts aren't actually japanese fonts (Meaning, they don't support japanese text). What they are is regular occidental fonts with hiragana (Syllabos) subbed instead of the actual glyphs. Meaning, instead of the glyph for the letter "h" you get the hiragana for "ku".
Either, print out/build a table with all the "letters" in those fonts next to the letters they're subbing for, or get some fonts that have support for japanese text (Hiragana+Katakana+Kanji... which is A LOT more characters)
I'm sorry for the crappy english, hope the explanation was useful nonetheless.

You might want to visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode

P.S.
To actually write japanese text you're gonna need an imput method editor. If you're on windows, it should you should be able to install the japanese language support, and it comes with an imput method, or you could use a program designed for that (Google "Japanese text editor")

StyleCode · 09-17-2008, 10:16 AM

Ah... Thanks for link to those ジャパニーズフォント (Japanese fonts), they'll will be useful. However, does anyone know the licensing terms, cause unless they're in the PD sector and released under the GPL we can't use them commercially.

DesignVHL · 09-17-2008, 08:53 PM

Don't know much about licensing...but if you find a good japanese font...you can use google to translate...I don't know how accurate/perfect it is...but I just translated "Hello my name is valerie" and it shot out this:

こんにちは私の名前はヴァレリー

Maybe if you copy/paste the above into your text editor, you can figure out what character relates to each letter....but the easier option may be to use the google translation tool...

http://translate.google.com/translate_t#

**Buda** · 09-17-2008, 10:34 PM

Even if you use google translator, it is a good idea to run it buy someone who can actually read Japanese to confirm that it's correct. Just because you have a few words, doesn't mean you can just string them together to make a sentence.

My mum can read Chinese and many times she's identified "Chinese" tattoos as fakes. As in they don't make sense. That's what you get by picking a "chinese" character tattoo from a tattoo shop book! I think some tattoo flash artists just make the stuff up or find a cool picture of a character next to a tiger and think that it means tiger or strong...or something.

**garricks** · 09-17-2008, 11:53 PM

buda speaks the truth.

Please, please, PLEASE do not use machine translations.

Many of our documents are translated into multiple languages. The only way to get a good translation is to use a native speaker. The Asian languages are so different from European langauges that there's no way a machine can do it with any degree of accuracy.

All the proof you need is in the English instruction manual for any electronic item produced in Asia. Or for the other way 'round, see http://engrishfunny.com/

**Buda** · 09-18-2008, 12:07 AM

Oh, and one of the the reasons why Yoda and Mr Miyagi sound funny is because the way they order words in a sentence. Chinese orders words differently to construct a sentence - this may the same as in Japanese.

You risk sounding as odd as Yoda does if you use a machine!

**garricks** · 09-18-2008, 12:22 AM

Here's another example: "I love you" translated by widget is "Я люблю вас."

Which is cool, except "вас" is plural. So you're really saying "I love you all." Typing the obsolete English singular "I love thou" nets me "Я люблю thou." Which is no help.

And that's just a simple, three-word sentence. Translating medical informed consent is somewhat more difficult.