Hi all,
I'm at a stage where I think I should try to read more in Japanese, but am really quite weak at vocab and can't seem to read anything without spending a LOT of time buried in a dictionary. So I was looking for software for Mac OS X that would annotate Japanese text by
a) automatically adding furigana to kanji,
b) automatically generating a glossary (with pronunciation and english definitions), and
c) preferably allowing the user to select the more difficult vocab so that the furigana and glossary do not cover vocab that the user already knows well.
I figured I'd post what I've found in case anyone else here finds it useful. Also, if anyone finds something that works better, please do share : )
JGloss http://jgloss.sourceforge.net/
- what I picked in the end
- Java based, works with EDICT and KANJIDIC
- provides furigana and a glossary, and allows you to hide annotations for specific words if you so choose or pick a different pronunciation for a word
- for JGloss to automatically look up definitions for expressions in hiragana though (rather than just kanji), I think you need to install the ChaSen parser, which I'm going to leave till later to figure out, cos it seems somewhat complicated.
Autogloss/J http://tell.fll.purdue.edu/JapanProj/Aut...Gloss.html
- supposedly auto-generates a glossary based on words you select from the text
- hasn't been updated in years, and can't seem to work on OS X.
JBrowse sounds promising for Windows users.
POPjisyo http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx
Rikai.com http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl
(also a post about trans.hiragana.jp/ruby/ somewhere in this forum)
- very easy to use for webpages -- gives you the pronunciation and english definition of words when you mouseover
- but can't generate glossaries
- makes it pretty much impossible to print the 'annotated' text
Reading Tutor http://language.tiu.ac.jp/tools_e.html
- provides a glossary of all words in a separate column, but doesn't allow you hide definitions of words you already know, which makes for a somewhat clunky glossary
Using Microsoft Word to add furigana
- instructions for how to activate this on a Mac can be found here http://www.vekis.com/?p=18
- but unlike in Windows, the Ruby function in Word for Mac does not automatically add (the most likely) pronunciation, and you have to type it in manually, which means you still have to go back to a dictionary is you don't know the kanji to begin with.
I'm at a stage where I think I should try to read more in Japanese, but am really quite weak at vocab and can't seem to read anything without spending a LOT of time buried in a dictionary. So I was looking for software for Mac OS X that would annotate Japanese text by
a) automatically adding furigana to kanji,
b) automatically generating a glossary (with pronunciation and english definitions), and
c) preferably allowing the user to select the more difficult vocab so that the furigana and glossary do not cover vocab that the user already knows well.
I figured I'd post what I've found in case anyone else here finds it useful. Also, if anyone finds something that works better, please do share : )
JGloss http://jgloss.sourceforge.net/
- what I picked in the end
- Java based, works with EDICT and KANJIDIC
- provides furigana and a glossary, and allows you to hide annotations for specific words if you so choose or pick a different pronunciation for a word
- for JGloss to automatically look up definitions for expressions in hiragana though (rather than just kanji), I think you need to install the ChaSen parser, which I'm going to leave till later to figure out, cos it seems somewhat complicated.
Autogloss/J http://tell.fll.purdue.edu/JapanProj/Aut...Gloss.html
- supposedly auto-generates a glossary based on words you select from the text
- hasn't been updated in years, and can't seem to work on OS X.
JBrowse sounds promising for Windows users.
POPjisyo http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx
Rikai.com http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl
(also a post about trans.hiragana.jp/ruby/ somewhere in this forum)
- very easy to use for webpages -- gives you the pronunciation and english definition of words when you mouseover
- but can't generate glossaries
- makes it pretty much impossible to print the 'annotated' text
Reading Tutor http://language.tiu.ac.jp/tools_e.html
- provides a glossary of all words in a separate column, but doesn't allow you hide definitions of words you already know, which makes for a somewhat clunky glossary
Using Microsoft Word to add furigana
- instructions for how to activate this on a Mac can be found here http://www.vekis.com/?p=18
- but unlike in Windows, the Ruby function in Word for Mac does not automatically add (the most likely) pronunciation, and you have to type it in manually, which means you still have to go back to a dictionary is you don't know the kanji to begin with.
