From OESF

This page is about how to use your Zaurus with various languages.

Contents 1 Using your Zaurus in another language 1.1 Japanese 1.1.1 Japanese Specific Software 1.2 English 1.3 Russian 1.4 Korean 1.5 Thai 2 Converting Locale 3 ROM Specific Details 3.1 Sharp 4 Language Tools

Using your Zaurus in another language

The below sections relate to languages that notable work has been made. They should be general to any ROM unless otherwise mentioned.

Japanese

The Sharp ROM is Japanese by default. You can edit the locale to change to other languages. Input methods are included for roman, kana and kanji.

You should have noticed that these days, Sharp views the Zaurus as a dictionary product. The SL-C3200 comes with E/J and J/E translation software and English lessons.

EDICT dictionaries are available for zbedic.

Using SCIM on pdaXrom incurs a speed penalty, but tomoe (handwriting), hiragana, katakana and Anthy (joint kana/kanji method) have been ported.

Japanese Specific Software

• JARDS is a word/character reference program.
• Kangoroo a linked dictionary program is available under pdaXrom and Sharp ROM.
• Also see Gakusei project.

English

The Sharp ROM can easily be converted to English, however help files are not supplied. Most ROMs default to English.

Russian

Anton Maslovsky seems to have made many tools including Cyrillic fonts, input method for the Sharp ROM. Check his page for dictionaries too.

Korean

Aki Rose has made a version of pdaXrom beta 3 for Korean called Maydew.

Using unifont on Sharp ROM is quite reasonable for showing Korean text.

Korean dictionaries are available for zbedic.

Thai

See Thai on Zaurus Project for fonts, useful tools, dictionaries and a Thai input method.

Converting Locale

Although these documents are about English, the procedure is similar for other languages.

• Localising/Converting to English
• Converting the Sharp ROM to English

ROM Specific Details

Sharp

• Bear in mind that changing locale also changes default font and even font size.
• qtmail, the default mail client expects all mail to be in UTF-8.
• Two categories in the categories database are hard coded in Japanese: if you don't use a font with Japanese katakana glyphs then you will always get two categories that are a row of boxes.

Language Tools

(It's useful to have this section, but in the future it is hoped to grow into a separate page.)

These are tools that can be used for any language.

• zbedic A dictionary reading program. See How to install and setup ZBEDIC : dictionary software
• toMOTko A flash card program
• SCIM is available for pdaXrom. SCIM is an input method for many languages.