General Questions Thread

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Another questions: i know there are 26( 26 right?) characters of katakana, 26 characters of Hiragana , another 7000(or somewhere around there) Kanji (which is similar with Chinese characters as i remember).

Each kana has 47 characters. The number of kanji, Chinese letters, is known to be approximately 50 thousands, of which one thousand are frequently used.

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

But what is furigana?

Kanji are sometimes hard to read because there are so many of them. So some books (especially for children and learners) tell the reader how to read the kanji in kana like this:



Focus on the small kana above the kanji. They are furigana. They are also called ruby because they were once printed in 5.5pt font (ruby-font).

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

And can people "guess" what i am writing if i write a whole sentence in Hiragana (given they can see my situation)?

Yes, but note that Japanese have many homonyms. Kanji is helpful to distinguish them.

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Finally, is it normal for Japanese to turn their back at you and walk straight away after finished the conversation? I found it's extremely annoyed, but not sure if it was just a difference in culture of not

I do not think so.

[Daniel E.]

http://www.atlus.com/yggdraunion/

The link above takes you to the official Yggdra Union page for the PSP version of the game. Under the Characters section, there are several animated chibis that I would pretty much love to save!

Of course, right-clicking on them doesn't seem to work, thus my question....



Is there a way to save those animations? >_<

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Is there a way to save those animations? >_<

Yep. Firstly, save the top.swf (the substance of the animation). Then decompile it with a software which has the function to analyse flash files, e.g., Flash Decompiler. You will get all the materials included in the flash.

Note that you must not use them outside the realm of fair use.

Question to the UK people:

How should call your country? I usually use the State names to mean
England = England
Britain = England + Scotland + Wales
the UK = England + Scotland + Wales + Northern Ireland + Mann..
Am I right in the usage?

[Daniel E.]

Thanks for the quick reply LiberLibri, but......

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Yep. Firstly, save the top.swf (the substance of the animation).

How do I do this?

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Thanks for the quick reply LiberLibri, but......

How do I do this?

Read the source of HTML document, find the <object> element, then follow the value of src attribute. In this case, I give you the link below. Right-click and save.
http://www.atlus.com/yggdraunion/top.swf

But you will need more technical knowledge to accomplish further process. If you have difficulty, learn flash technologies first.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Read the source of HTML document, find the <object> element, then follow the value of src attribute. In this case, I give you the link below. Right-click and save.
http://www.atlus.com/yggdraunion/top.swf

But you will need more technical knowledge to accomplish further process. If you have difficulty, learn flash technologies first.

Thanks again LiberLibri!

Like you just said, I certainly need to know more about this.

[Furuno]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Thanks again LiberLibri!

Like you just said, I certainly need to know more about this.

Then this is the best place to learn about that stuff :
http://www.w3schools.com

[Solafighter]

How can i increase the speed of a clip in VirtualDub(1.8.1.)? (Making a clip, which a length of 40 seconds to speed up for 10 seconds[i want render it like that as well])

Im doing some tests for HD capturing and rendering with high level frames so i want to use virtualdub as support tool.

[mangalowres]

Puuuuuu, you can change the frame rate
EDIT:
Video -> Frame Rate -> Change to here frames per second
You can see the current frame rate in the same dialog.


But I think there is also a filter for that, but I don't know where to find it
www.vcdhelp.com <- you should try this side it's very good

[Solafighter]

Originally Posted by mangalowres

Puuuuuu, you can change the frame rate
Video -> Frame Rate -> Frame Rate conversion -> Convert to fps: here
You can see the current frame rate in the same dialog


But I think there is also a filter for that, but I don't know where to find it
www.vcdhelp.com <- you should try this side it's very good

Thank you.

[Furuno]

I know there's something called Zettai Ryouiki characters, I know there's something called >_< / XD images, but, is there any some kind of name / lingo for a character with mouth shaped like cat's mouth (example -> :3 )?

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Why was the name "Haruhi" written in katakana, but not Hiragana?

Or were all names in Japanese were written in katakana?

WanderingKnights already gave a good answer, but I have another hint.

Firstly, although people in the islands achieved high rate of literacy in the 14th century, the reading/writing ability of vulgar people were limited within kana-s for a long long time, until the 19th century. Only male nobles, samurais and priests knew kanji. So non-privileged people usually gave their children the names in kana. Even in the 19th and early 20th century, women in lower class could not enjoy full education. So women wrote their names in kana, especially in katakana, because katakana has "official", "rigid" and "rational" nuance while hiragana conveys "usual", "soft" and "emotional" colour.

Today, most persons, regardless their sex or class, have kanji names. But some people prefer to give their children kana names. There are several reasons. For an example, kanji necessarily bears implication because of the nature as ideogram. The name "Takeshi" has different meaning according to which kanji it is wirrten; 猛 (brave), 健 (health), 剛 (strong) etc. Some people prefer meaning-neutral, say, "only-sound" names.

Then look back upon the first question. Haruhi in katakana, ハルヒ, gives me, a native Japanese speaker, such nuances as: anachronistic, logic-rather-than-sense, unique, stranger and ultramodern. I think the nuances are what Mr. Tanigawa wanted to express in her name. (Other Japanese might have different feeling in this point; if so, tell me please)

It is regrettable Chinese version of Haruhi converted her name into kanji...

Originally Posted by Furuno

I know there's something called Zettai Ryouiki characters, I know there's something called >_< / XD images, but, is there any some kind of name / lingo for a character with mouth shaped like cat's mouth (example -> :3 )?

(´・ω・｀)
猫口 (Neko-Kuchi / cat's mouth)

Once such shape was called 兎口 (Mitsu-Kuchi, rabbit's mouth) but the term has been associated with palatoschisis in reality, and today it is regarded as politically inappropriate.

[risingstar3110]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

WanderingKnights already gave a good answer, but I have another hint.

Firstly, although people in the islands achieved high rate of literacy in the 14th century, the reading/writing ability of vulgar people were limited within kana-s for a long long time, until the 19th century. Only male nobles, samurais and priests knew kanji. So non-privileged people usually gave their children the names in kana. Even in the 19th and early 20th century, women in lower class could not enjoy full education. So women wrote their names in kana, especially in katakana, because katakana has "official", "rigid" and "rational" nuance while hiragana conveys "usual", "soft" and "emotional" colour.

Today, most persons, regardless their sex or class, have kanji names. But some people prefer to give their children kana names. There are several reasons. For an example, kanji necessarily bears implication because of the nature as ideogram. The name "Takeshi" has different meaning according to which kanji it is wirrten; 猛 (brave), 健 (health), 剛 (strong) etc. Some people prefer meaning-neutral, say, "only-sound" names.

Then look back upon the first question. Haruhi in katakana, ハルヒ, gives me, a native Japanese speaker, such nuances as: anachronistic, logic-rather-than-sense, unique, stranger and ultramodern. I think the nuances are what Mr. Tanigawa wanted to express in her name. (Other Japanese might have different feeling in this point; if so, tell me please)

Thank you a lot for your detail answers =]

Another question. What is the sentence in this picture means? I can recognise only like 3 characters in it

[mangalowres]

Does someone know a site where I can upload pictures which won't be delteted after only a couple of days/months?
I know some image sites but there is always a time limit if you are not a premium user.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by mangalowres

Does someone know a site where I can upload pictures which won't be delteted after only a couple of days/months?
I know some image sites but there is always a time limit if you are not a premium user.

From the ImageShack FAQ:

Your files will only be deleted if they do not adhere to our Terms of Service. If you are registered, your files will be available forever. If you are not registered, any file that you upload will continue to be available if it is accessed by anyone at least once per year.

My thread in FC is more than a year old and all the IS links are still working, so I know first hand that this is indeed true.

The links sometimes don't show, but so far, it has always been a temporary thing.

[mangalowres]

Thanks, I know ImageShack but I thought they would delete files after some month.

Originally Posted by From ImageShack

How can I create an account?

Currently we have this feature disabled until we are sure we can offer you a bug free and enjoyable experience.

Now I remember why I didn't made myself an account

[Mystique]

1900 = nineteen hundred
1902 = nineteen oh two
1960 = nineteen sixty
1999 = nineteen ninty-nine

2000 = two thousand (or 2k)
2001 = two thousand and 1
Q1 - Why aren't we saying two thousand oh 1?

2008 = two thousand and 8

2010 = twenty ten or two thousand and 10
2011 = twenty eleven?

2019 = twenty nineteen?

English is my native language but even this confuzzles me, lol.

Why is it some methods of saying the years feels more... 'natural' than others? Are we just figuring the shortest and quickest way to identify years, since 21C and before, we split it into 19-95 instead of one thousand, nine hundred and ninty-five (but other languages say it like this from 1AD etc)

So if it's 1802 = eighteen oh two, why don't we say twenty oh eight xD
Is it to do with the turn of the millenium maybe?

Do i need a thread for this, it seems to be more interesting if linguists come out of the woodwork and start finding out historical reasons for how we pronounce dates etc xD
(also it'll be interesting to see how people of aother languages break down the years over the last odd 500 or so) ^^

But that's my "silly question" of the last 3 years

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Another question. What is the sentence in this picture means? I can recognise only like 3 characters in it

Spoiler for img:

過ぎ去りし日々の終着点，literally translated as "the terminal point of the past days". But I am not sure if my poor interpretation can convey the original subtlety. The girl standing on a railway, which symbolises the life, is gazing at far end, the future. She has walked on a long way - the sunset implies it - and finally she gets the view of the terminal.

[Anh_Minh]

... Kana's dying?

[Solafighter]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Thank you a lot for your detail answers =]

Another question. What is the sentence in this picture means? I can recognise only like 3 characters in it

That is Minami-ke Okawari?

Mh whatever.


I have a question about Windows XP and regional code and stuff.

Some people of you know, to set the "Language for non-Unicode programs" to japanese. But if i do that, one other program doesnt work. Is there a possibility to configure it like this, that both can programs are able to work?