I've already ordered a Pandora, but I've still got £300 to spend on stuff and have no idea what to spend it on! Are there any cool gadgets out there that I don't know about? Perhaps something to help with my Japanese?

If you don't already have a portable, easy to use device with kanji handwriting recognition that you can use to look things up in a dictionary when you're just sitting around reading a book, get one. (I mean an electronic dictionary, or a well configured PDA if you prefer.) I was amazed at the difference it made in my willingness to (a) read stuff and (b) look things up occasionally rather than just skipping blithely over them.

I bought myself a very helpful study tool with lots of Japanese text and audio, all within a similar setting and usually with lots of repetition of various vocabulary and concepts. It's also designed to sustain users thirst for knowledge by being very entertaining and involving. I bought ff xiii

hey, aren't you supposed to buy other people stuff for Christmas?

Not new, but if you like TV and are away from home often, those Slingbox things let you record and watch your home PVR from anywhere. Or how about something that lets you stream your media (more likely to be in Japanese) to a stereo/TV in another part of the house.

New: Fabrice mentioned Kindle in another thread.

I think bombpersons meant to link to openpandora.ORG =)

As for electronic dictionaries I would pick up a DSi and そのままDS楽引辞典.
DSi costs at most $250 (depending if you are importing from America or buying locally.)
When you buy one you get $10 dollars in credit which you can download one of several dictionaries. One of which you can use a camera to look up a word. ;}

A regular eletronic dictionary goes for $100-500 dollars. But the DSi can act as a muisc player, a (crappy) web browser and game machine.

But that dictionary is subpar, and isn't monolingual. The definitions are iffy at best sometimes, as well.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to get if you already have a DS, but to buy a DS and that instead of an actually electronic dictionary is a little silly I think.

DS can play Japanese games. Even if the dictionary sucks I think Japanese games alone are reason enough to get it.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:But that dictionary is subpar, and isn't monolingual. The definitions are iffy at best sometimes, as well.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to get if you already have a DS, but to buy a DS and that instead of an actually electronic dictionary is a little silly I think.

It's fine. Has E-J, J-E and lo and behold it also has J-J so yes, it is monolingual. Dunno why people bag it out so hard. It's sufficient as a dictionary, I use it all the time. There are a few entries It doesn't have that maybe it should but an example is there is no J-E entry for 任天堂 only a J-J one. I don't think anyones going to notice tbh.

Besides...

http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.24827

my friend got one of those (so cheap!!!!) and he has like every kanji learning bit of software for the DS you can find aswell as Kanji Sono Mama. All that for $11? Yes please.

I bought a wordtank v300 for $225 + $20 shipping at WhiteRabbitPress.
They have a special order service and will charge you according to how much
they can get it for in Japan. They have better prices than all the other
online stores that sell Japanese dictionaries (if you use the special order service to order from Japan).

Basically, the dictionary price in Japan + $20-$25 shipping.
For comparison, the other online stores were charging $320-$400 for my dictionary.

Speaking of WhiteRabbitPress, I suggest you buy their Shadowing book and CD:

http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...16500.html

or browse their hard-to-find language books section:

http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...c-250.html

By the way, have you checked the newest discussion in revtk-share.hexagon.cc:

http://revtk-share.hexagon.cc/discussion...GULAR_MAIL

mezbup Wrote:

Ryuujin27 Wrote:But that dictionary is subpar, and isn't monolingual. The definitions are iffy at best sometimes, as well.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to get if you already have a DS, but to buy a DS and that instead of an actually electronic dictionary is a little silly I think.

It's fine. Has E-J, J-E and lo and behold it also has J-J so yes, it is monolingual. Dunno why people bag it out so hard. It's sufficient as a dictionary, I use it all the time. There are a few entries It doesn't have that maybe it should but an example is there is no J-E entry for 任天堂 only a J-J one. I don't think anyones going to notice tbh.

Besides...

http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.24827

my friend got one of those (so cheap!!!!) and he has like every kanji learning bit of software for the DS you can find aswell as Kanji Sono Mama. All that for $11? Yes please.

I mainly bag on it because it use to not find a lot of the words I tried to look up. It really just left a bad taste in my mouth that my 電子辞書 has gladly stepped up to fix.

bombpersons Wrote:I've already ordered a Pandora, but I've still got £300 to spend on stuff and have no idea what to spend it on! Are there any cool gadgets out there that I don't know about? Perhaps something to help with my Japanese?

How about a slim PS3?
Final Fantasy XIII will be released on December 17th in Japan.... :-)

chamcham Wrote:

bombpersons Wrote:I've already ordered a Pandora, but I've still got £300 to spend on stuff and have no idea what to spend it on! Are there any cool gadgets out there that I don't know about? Perhaps something to help with my Japanese?

How about a slim PS3?
Final Fantasy XIII will be released on December 17th in Japan.... :-)

That's exactly what I'm getting ;-)

I vowed not to get a PS3 until FFXIII came out, and I'll be damned if I didn't keep that promise!

chamcham Wrote:

bombpersons Wrote:I've already ordered a Pandora, but I've still got £300 to spend on stuff and have no idea what to spend it on! Are there any cool gadgets out there that I don't know about? Perhaps something to help with my Japanese?

How about a slim PS3?
Final Fantasy XIII will be released on December 17th in Japan.... :-)

Ha =D I already have one =P I'm definately going to get FF13, I thought that was a given

I thought about getting a DS or a 電子辞書 but I will be able to most of things that they can do on my Pandora.

I'm torn on whether or not I should get a Kindle or one of it's competitors. The Nook seems a bit small... The Kindle DX looks nice and big, but it seems a bit expensive.. I guess the major deciding factor is whether or not they are any good at reading manga?

Why not just get a used ipod touch and load some epwing dicts or appstore dicts on it? It also makes a (much much better than ds) music player and plays some games (albeit not as well as DS). On the plus side it's cheaper, smaller, has longer battery life, has better dictionaries than sonomama, the best mobile webbrowser, and ankimini.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Why not just get a used ipod touch and load some epwing dicts or appstore dicts on it? It also makes a (much much better than ds) music player and plays some games (albeit not as well as DS). On the plus side it's cheaper, smaller, has longer battery life, has better dictionaries than sonomama, the best mobile webbrowser, and ankimini.

Not to mention it can display lyrics on the screen whilst the song is playing and Lyrics Master can automatically add the lyrics to all you're songs in iTunes giving you a library full of learning opportunities.

I will buy an R4i for my DSi (to play games in chinese and japanese), will get an HTC Magic (tu use Anki in it, and because I need a new celphone). bombpersons, I don't know if you already have one, but you cuould buy a portable device to use Anki.

Oh, and yesterday I got a portable DVD player, do you know any european sites where I can buy japanese DVD's? I have like 20 movies, but none has japanese subtitles.

Just bought a Nokia N900. It may not have handwriting recognition yet... (nor software for front camera, ir, portrait mode for apps, voice activated anything, etc.) ... but it will soon.

Beside, it has a full browser, meaning that it can display any website, stream any content, video, etc. That means nikoniko as well. (flash 9.4, with 10.1 coming soon)

Not to mention its a unlocked world-wide phone with skype integrated into the core system.

Anyways, it will work with ankionline. I'm expecting the linux version of anki to be ported very soon as well, as there has been talk on os site, maemo.

I'm also hoping that linux epwing/dict get ported soon so that I can loose my electronic dictionary all together.

bombpersons Wrote:

chamcham Wrote:

bombpersons Wrote:I've already ordered a Pandora, but I've still got £300 to spend on stuff and have no idea what to spend it on! Are there any cool gadgets out there that I don't know about? Perhaps something to help with my Japanese?

How about a slim PS3?
Final Fantasy XIII will be released on December 17th in Japan.... :-)

Ha =D I already have one =P I'm definately going to get FF13, I thought that was a given

I thought about getting a DS or a 電子辞書 but I will be able to most of things that they can do on my Pandora.

I'm torn on whether or not I should get a Kindle or one of it's competitors. The Nook seems a bit small... The Kindle DX looks nice and big, but it seems a bit expensive.. I guess the major deciding factor is whether or not they are any good at reading manga?

I've been thinking the same thing lately.
I was torn between getting a Kindle or Nook.

My advice would be to not buy the Kindle DX or Nook.
Wait until Apple releases their long-rumored Apple iTouch tablet(expected in Q1 2010).

It will likely blow the Kindle and all e-readers out of the water. And with a multitouch interface on a larger screen tablet (10 or 12 inches), it'll be awesome for e-reading.

I'm sure Apple has an ace up their sleeve and will single-handedly create a whole new category of devices. All of the current e-reader devices have enough faults that nothing is really worth buying right now.

According to rumors, Apple has already been approaching certain big publishers with regards to selling their content in an online store.

Even if the apple tablet kills kindle and nook, both companies could live on as e-book stores on e-reader devices. Amazon and B&N are the best online book stores anyway.
So that would make sense(and arguably make them more money than selling hardware).

For me, it's between the Pandora, DS, iTouch/Phone. Basically anything can help me learn Japanese on the go, and from what I understand, all three of these devices can use anki.

Being the cheapo that I am, a DS looks like the way to go.

chamcham Wrote:Wait until Apple releases their long-rumored Apple iTouch tablet(expected in Q1 2010).

Don't be surprised if nothing is released. Apple has started and killed tablet projects numerous times. Personally I think technology is still too immature to make the kind of tablet I'd expect from Apple at a price approaching reality.

I won't buy into tablets until colour e-paper is out, with a fast refresh rate, and cheap.

I was thinking of buying Christmas presents for a few friends whom I help tutor in Japanese, but don't really know what would be suitable. I'll be heading into San Francisco this weekend, so thought of just going to Kinokuniya and buying them books to try and read, but I don't really know anything for their level. They're finishing their second year of classes in Japanese, so I guess that would make them JLPT3 or so. Anyone have advice for what books would be in their reach? (though I'm sure they'll still have to use dictionaries). I was thinking maybe Harry Potter, since I've seen people talking about that on this forum, but I've only read that series in English so I don't know the difficulty of it in Japanese.
Maybe I could do manga, but I know nothing about manga and would probably pick something terrible

i'm waiting for the Apple tablet as well... but i did finally give in and I bought a 32GB iPod touch on black friday.. i could always sell it on ebay or give it to my wife when the tablet comes out

Aijin: I'm not sure there's much interesting material they could read at that level without a lot of trouble. Maybe you could get them something like "Reading Japanese with a Smile," which is a collection of short stories with accompanying English translations and vocabulary/grammar notes. Other similar books are "Read Real Japanese Fiction" and "Read Real Japanese Essays," but these have some advanced material, whereas "Reading Japanese with a Smile" seems to be aimed at intermediate learners.