I did a search and couldn't find this suggestion anywhere. It would be nice to have an option under user settings to show furigana above kanji in Japanese forum posts. Control over it could include switching it completely off and setting the level according to JLPT or school grade (例えば: "JLPT N4 and above"; or "小５年以上"; etc).
So not a simple matter, unfortunately. How about the ability in the new post pane for folks to add ルビ to kanji? It might be a bit finicky, but if the option was there and it worked similar to how you do it in a Word document, it could be an advantage.
I was thinking of the automatic furigana thing because I just found out that on Yahoo Kids (yes, Japanese love their yahoo still), you can click a button and then choose the grade level of yomigana to appear. Here at school, it was putting furigana over all the kanji that was above the selected grade, but when I tried it at home it was putting the readings in brackets. Still, they seemed to get it to function, so I figured it was a matter of grabbing the readings from a dictionary and spitting them out in that format. :(
In order to provide functionality like that, the sentences would have to be preparsed by a human (or rather, machine parsed, then checked by someone) to confirm both when a word starts/stops, as well as which readings to go with. It is not something that you can dump raw text into and get accurate readings, alas.
I do not believe ruby is well supported across browsers yet, so I don't think it is an option that wouldn't bring along with it its own set of errors.
Im not sure but are you talking about something similar to Rikaichan (add on for Firefox - Japanese to English dictionary)? If you see any kanjis, you can have the vocabulary hightlighted and it will tell you what the possible readings and meaning are.
[quote author=Natsu link=topic_id=5354&post_id=26155#rmsg_26155 date=1339217258]Im not sure but are you talking about something similar to Rikaichan (add on for Firefox - Japanese to English dictionary)? If you see any kanjis, you can have the vocabulary hightlighted and it will tell you what the possible readings and meaning are.[/quote]
Not at all. Rikaichan was like an internal dictionary with pop-up boxes. I say 'was', because honestly, who still uses Firefox when given the choice? Having the convenience of simply 読みがな sitting above kanji combos wouldn't be nearly as intrusive as a huge pop-up box with all sorts of information in it.
Perhaps another possibility would be to have kanji in any given forum post clickable and linked to the site's internal dictionary, as with example sentences, etc. Or is that also an impossible task? Yep, I'm such a programming pro (not). >.<
well they won't work in mine, sadly (I've already got my kanji set ;) ) but maybe I'll 無理矢理 put them in my childrens' names (I'm going to be the World's Cruelest Mother in the naming department lol)
[quote author=mysticfive link=topic_id=5354&post_id=26221#rmsg_26221 date=1339988822]well they won't work in mine, sadly (I've already got my kanji set ;) ) but maybe I'll 無理矢理 put them in my childrens' names (I'm going to be the World's Cruelest Mother in the naming department lol)[/quote]
So off-topic, but that is so mean! Our girls' names are 恵里 （えり）、まや and 恵舞 （えま）. We write えり and えま in English as Eddi and Emma, respectively, though their passports say Eri and Ema (no choice in the matter; you know how Japanese bureaucracy is).
I just found out not too long ago, that 凹 is an alternative to 窪, both kanji of which I came across years ago but never put together (mostly because I came across 凹 in Heisig's book, so didn't know the pronunciation or real use). 窪, because the main town in my little rural area is called 窪川 （くぼかわ）, and I wrote it a fair number of times while I was a JET, full well knowing both meaning and pronunciation. And I agree, those two kanji in Michael's example are really trippy in their simplicity...
I figured there was clickability, but I just wanted to make sure. :)
well see I've already decided that I totally want to continue the 'weird name' trend - my name is apparently immpossible to pronounce or spell, I can't even *begin* to tell you all the random names I've been called! Besides which, I'm a nerd... so I totally want to name a son Hroþgar (pronounced 'Rothgar' - it's the original form of the name 'Roger' but so much cooler!) so since I'm already going to be using a þ (thorn), why not fabulous kanji as well? ;)
Actually, it's pronounced with the h: Hrothgar. "Hwæt! Hé sy Hroþgar." Ah, the Beowulf memories...
Are you allowed to put a thorn in a person's name? I'm surprised. I heard Blizzard nerfed special char- erm, I mean, wouldn't that cause complications for... well, everything?
yeah I know but since the H is more breathed than anything else, the explanation is easier that way ;)
And here I thought I was the only nerd who read Beowulf in the original! Þhat wæs god bóc
It was my first time doing OE and I had to translate and study 2/3 of the story for one semester. It was a great (though somewhat stressful) experience. I've forgotten the four pronoun cases in OE now...
I'd better leave it at that, though. Turned this topic into a nerdy discussion. Sorry, Michael!
