Cacko Z As A Japanese Learning Aid

[andrewmaier]

Hi,

this evening I will start toto take Japanese lessons, and I was wondering if and how to use my Sl-760 for this. Does anyone have recommendations on what to install.  In addition I have a few questions, before I dig any deeper:

1) Does it make sense to install the Cacko Japanese ROM? Specifically I read that the ctrl alt mapping is turned off for the Japanese rom, Does that mean I won't have any ctrl keys. I heavily rely on the ctrl key in the terminal app.

2.) I read in the excellent Cacko Japanese Howto (http://my-zaurus.narod.ru/cacko-jp-howto.html) that I can install several different input methods. Are these inputmethods self explanatory, or is there some knowledge necessary and if so where  can I find some docs?

3) What Kana and Kanji training tools are there around. Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Andrew

[xamindar]

A must for japanese tools are zten and kanjinirvana.
Of course I am coming from the background of having a US zaurus and adding Japanese support.

IMkit-Anthy lets me type japanese characters with the keyboard which is very usefull.

I guess that's it right now.  My zaurus has become very usefull in Japanese class.

[Stubear]

Hi,

this evening I will start toto take Japanese lessons, and I was wondering if and how to use my Sl-760 for this. Does anyone have recommendations on what to install.  In addition I have a few questions, before I dig any deeper:

1) Does it make sense to install the Cacko Japanese ROM? Specifically I read that the ctrl alt mapping is turned off for the Japanese rom, Does that mean I won't have any ctrl keys. I heavily rely on the ctrl key in the terminal app.

If you are comfortable using the Z with Japanese menus (great learning aid ) then you don't really need the Cacko J Rom, otherwise I'd recommend it. You can edit the keyhelper file to give you a Ctrl key as well as having the Kanji key work (the kana/hiragana key isn't rally needed and can be used as the ctrl key)

2.) I read in the excellent Cacko Japanese Howto (http://my-zaurus.narod.ru/cacko-jp-howto.html) that I can install several different input methods. Are these inputmethods self explanatory, or is there some knowledge necessary and if so where  can I find some docs?

If you've used the input methods on other OSes then you'll probably find them self explanatory. The CRIM (Japanese handwriting recognition) is great for finding kanji you can draw but don't know the reading of. Using the keyboard for Japanese input assumes that you know the kana - romanji conversions but they are the same for all IMEs I've ever used.

3) What Kana and Kanji training tools are there around. Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Andrew
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There are a bucket of useful apps around, how useful they are to you will depend on what exaclty you want to learn. For starters you'll need kanjinirvana, zten and some dictionary files. Later as you'll probably need some kinda flashcard program to help you learn vocabulary and kanji.

Good studying

Stu

[andrewmaier]

If you are comfortable using the Z with Japanese menus (great learning aid ) then you don't really need the Cacko J Rom, otherwise I'd recommend it. You can edit the keyhelper file to give you a Ctrl key as well as having the Kanji key work (the kana/hiragana key isn't rally needed and can be used as the ctrl key)

Well I don't I am ready to see my Z in Japanese, so I probably will flash the Japanese Kernel.

But for for the keyhelper file, do you have more specific instructions?? If I remember, it involves hacking some xml file, but the details seem to be somewhat obscure. Do you have a specific example?

Good studying

Stu
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Thanks,

Andrew

[Stubear]

Well I don't I am ready to see my Z in Japanese, so I probably will flash the Japanese Kernel.

But for for the keyhelper file, do you have more specific instructions?? If I remember, it involves hacking some xml file, but the details seem to be somewhat obscure. Do you have a specific example?
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I also wrote a script that converts the menus to English while allowing the full use of Japanese. I know it works on the C760, cause that is what I wrote it on.

You can find it by searching the forums or send me a PM and I'll reattach it, or yuo get get my script and a lot of ideas about using the Z for Japanese at [a href=\"http://www.wbcd.org/computing/zaurus/part_12.html]http://www.wbcd.org/computing/zaurus/part_12.html[/url]. The site is for C700 but everything is also valid for the C760 (in fact you have more flash ram space)

Stu

[andrewmaier]

Hi there

thanks for all the help. I managed to make my Z able to do Japanese characters. I installed the Japanese Cacko rom on top of my Cacko lite installation and then prceeded following the recipes given in the Japanese Howto.

Since I am not a fan of the lcfont, I looked for a replacement and converted the cyberbit font which has a complete unicode carachter set. Unfortunately this makes is rather large (8,10,12,14,16,20,22 and 24pt gives some 120Mb (ouch)), but that is what I am using as my main font now.

Some apps do not seem to respond to the changing the input method e.g. TextMaker does not respond at all when trying to input kana. It also seems to use other fonts. Anyone got any experience with TextMaker in this respect?

Also theKompany's Editor app does not allow to type any kana

Finally, the terminal app now seems to react to some control sequences (e.g. CTRL-C CTRL-H CTRL-D)  but vim does not seem to react to CTRL-V (which I frequently use) which is a shame. Anyone know any reason for this? The terminal (and thus vi also belong to the set of apps that do not allow any kana/kanji) And since vi is my main editor, I'd love to get it working



Thanks Andrew

[xamindar]

Offtopic question for you guys:

Will ANY of these japanese programs work on a SL-5xxx?  I just tried installing the japanese-support package and it killed my Zaurus.  Would the dictionary work?