∧＿∧ In this thread, you can talk English with each other.
( ・ω・) Let's drink tea together and chat about this and that.
（つ旦0 Ramble, communicate, have fun!
と＿)__) The native speakers will bring the cookies.
To anyone who routinely types Japanese text, is it true that text entry is literally faster on a cell phone keypad, instead of a keyboard? I know very little about the alphabets, but does the structure of the language just lend itself to a situation like that?
I'm >>411-414, not >>416.
Why on earth me and >>416 have the same ID? Hmmm....
>>415
It's inconvenient not to be able to post whenever you want.
I hope you'll find efficient proxies soon.
>>417
You said before that you need to copy and preserve your comment before posting so that it won't diminish when the message is blocked. Now you need to do that 10 times for each post? Sounds really bothering.
米人 must be in trouble now. Maybe she gave up already.
>>418
It should be a lot faster to type Japanese with PC's keyboard (QWERTY keyboard) than with cell phones key alignment of a cell phone. The number of times you have to punch keys is larger when you use a cell phone for text messaging or emailing.
You must be talking about middle school or high school students.
Some of them type at a lightning speed with cell phone keypad, they aren't accustomed to type with PC's keyboard so in that case, they type faster with cell phone keypad than PC's key board.
Maybe ID's of people from Japan is all Heaven...
Not sure though.
Thank you for you for your input, >>419. As an American, it's very strange to consider a youth being unaccustomed to a PC keyboard. It IS true that younger kids are faster on a cell phone keypad (sending text SMS) than the older students I'm around... I recently read <a href="http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/01/30/07">this NPR article</a> about "keitai culture," and that's why I asked. The amount of connectivity in Japan just blows my mind. I'm a bit of a computer geek and that kind of technology is interesting to me, but being SO connected to the point of nervous breakdown is just frightening. I'd love to visit, though.
>>420
Do you not understand? Every user who enters 'sage' as their link results in ID:Heaven.
Look.
>As an American, it's very strange to consider a youth being unaccustomed to a PC keyboard.
Well, not all households have a PC/PCs in their household. if
their parents' jobs aren't office work then they are less likely
to be familiar with PC and don't own a PC in their home. It's
kind of like a digital devide in Japan.
Even in such families, kids there wants to have their own cell
phone to be connected with their friends all the time, so
their parents buy a cell phone for their kids. That way, even if
a kid can't type PC keyboard well, they are very skilled in
typing on a cell phone keypad.
Students have a chance to get familiar with PC at school but
schools PC literacy education is defferent from school to school
so, some students don't acquire good typing skill because of
the lack of time they can spend on typing on PC key board.
So they are better at typing on their cell phone keypad.
As the webiste you put a link to says, some students and even
adults are kind of like addicted to cell phone use.
My 15-year-old nephew's cell phone has been taken away by her
mother=my sister, because her mom found out that when she was
supposed to study in her room, in fact, she was sending e-mails
for hours at night during the entire period of school's test
week. Her grades were terrible and her mom has taken it away.
There seems to be a unique cell phone use culture among
youngsters in Japan. There's a rule among them what's called
30 minutes rule in which if you don't reply to your friends'
e-mail in 30 minutes, the recepient think they are ignored
and disliked and the friendship go bad. Some call it 3 minutes
rule, not 30 minuites. Kids have to be on alert.
Bullying on the Internet is a social problem here and some schools banned students cell phone use. This is a sign that it's common for students in Japan to use Internet on their cell phones.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20081221a1.html
http://wirelesswatch.jp/
This website gives you the cell phone trend in Japan.
http://www.wirelesswatch.jp/docs/JMIR_Sample.pdf
This ecerpt of a PDF document sold by the company that runs the website above gives you what's going on in Japan's cell phone
internet use. You can learn a lot from it, although data there
is until 2006 or 2007.
I'm not what's called a digital native and don't use a cell
phone for email and web browsing so, reading the PDF file and
the website gives me better undersatanding of cell phone
Internet trend. I can practice reading English, too.
By the way, the website you put the lingk to is English-
learners-friendly in that they provide the scripts of audios,
too. If I couldn't catch some words, I can check the script.
I think I'll listen and read other articles on the website.
>>422
Oh, stupid me. orz Thanks.
Hmm..??
Now I see my entire post without clicking anything.
Anyway, "Oh, stupid me. orz Thanks." is the last line of the
long post.
For gaijins like me, do you advise travelling Tokyo alone? Will it be possible to just move around and meet random people like you are in North America or Europe?
>>426
I'm interested in this question too. A friend and I want to travel to Japan this summer.
[secret question: is it true that the drinking age is enforced very loosely? we would be just shy of the drinking age.]
Interesting that this thread should suddenly come alive.
>>411
The whole .se top domain still seems to be blocked. I still see the same 「海外ドメイン規制(se)。」 message, at least.
So it is quite a coincidence - I will change ISP soon to one that offers a good 3G / UMTS broadband service, and I belive I will be able to post again.. (They do not use the .se domain.)
>>427
You are very updated about how cell phone carriers charge you. I'm too lazy to keep an eye on how Japanese carriers charge you. How they charge is too complicated at least for me so I'm not so updated. If you go to an outlet of carriers, they show you the most appropriate charge plan based on your cell phone use and internet and email habit.
In Japan there are three major carriers, NTTdocomo, AU and Softbank. Softbank bought cell phone business from Vodafone, by the way. Before introduction of "number portability" system a few years ago, if you change carriers, your cell phone number had to be changed. That was inconvenient for consumers and made them hesitate to change carriers. That prevent the market's fair cometiotion and helped NTTdocomo dominate large market share.
After introduction of number portability system, consumers can use the same number even if they change carriers so if they have complains about one carrier's service, they can change carriers without too much hesitation. That urges carriers fair competition and healty market. The competiton among carriers gets fierce and that is good for consumers because they offer more user friendly charge system such as as long as you talk with your family members the telephone charge is free or things like that.
But at the same time, they try to catch and hold their costomers by offering a charge system where the longer you use one carrier, the more discount rate you get. This seems like the same with America judging from your post. And if you break a contract and change your carrier they fine you. This is the same with America. Well, anyway, I don't know much about charge system though.
Yeah, rude people with bad cell phone habit is everywhere here, too, young and old. Funny haha but annoying thing is that elderly people have a bad cell phone habit because of they don't know much about cell phone. Some elderly poeple don't even know how to set their phone on "mannar mode"(Mannar mode might be Japanese English. Maybe it's better to say "silent mode")
In a theater, libray, wherever you have to be quiet, their cell phones ring loud. I think they don't know how to set their cell phone on silent mode with vibration. Annoying thing is they speak very loud there. Elderly people once critisized young people's bad cell phone habit, which is talking loud in a public place, emailing wherever they are and you name it, but once they come to have their own cell phone, they are doing the same thing. At least young people know how to set their cell on silent mode.
I know NPR. Actually I have visited NPR's website. It's national public radio so their broadcast and articles aren't
sensationalized. NPR is very calm but sometimes a little bit boring because of that. Sometimes articles and broadcast of 3 major networks' are too sensationalized. The anchors there act and speak like an actor with too much emotion. I like between NPR and 3 major networks if you know what I mean. hehe
Thanks for another link, too. Although I'm not good at listening to English, I tired a few audio there. I'll read and listen more there, too.
>>428
Legal drinking age is 20 here but it's a shame to admit that Japan is very loose about it. Japan is getting very severe about driving under influence, though and the police and restaurants, bar which offer alchol takes very tough approach now. If some people go to bar and they drink beer and one person drive back home with them, the friends who drink with the driver are arrested, too.
Vending machines are everywhere in Japan and some of them sell beer. No ID is needed to get beer using vending machine.
I think you can't use vending machines that sell beer from 11pm to 5am. I'm not sure though. I don't drink alchol.
Convenience stores sell beer, too. They don't ask you to show an ID if you don't look too young. Mind you, I'm not encouraging you to drink alchol here.
>>430
Yes, you need to hack the registry. Fortunately, there is already a reg file.
http://www7.plala.or.jp/dvorakjp/download.htm
I don't know if your school allows you to hack it or if it works for the Swedish keyboard.
>>435
As the blog's entry said, they are taking preventive measures against minors' tabaco purchase, but I never heard of any equivalent stories about vending machines that sell beer and other alchol.
Sad incidents are happening around Japan regarding the introduction of Taspo, age-verification cards. As the blog entry says, vending machines with the face recognition function is very rare now, so Taspo card is the only measure to prevent minors from buying cigaret on vending machines. All vending machines except the ones with face recognition system have Taspo reader. The problem is that the regstration for a Taspo card is bothersome, which includes filing out a form.
So not many smokers have made their own Taspo card. That means they buy cigarret at a convenient store. Small mom-and-pop stores that sell cigarret rely their sales on from vending machine so lots of these small business are going bankrupcy.
>>436
I think it's unfortunate that the Japanese life is "too busy" to fill out a form, even if it means more convenient access to things they would buy anyway. And it is good morals to support independent stores.
You not only have to fill out a form but also you have to take it with your ID such as a driver's liscence to somewhere to get
a Taspo card for vending machine perchase.
I'm a smoker myself (not smoke much) but I don't know where I have to bring the form to to get a Taspo card and where I can get a form for that matter. Maybe because I'm always thinking about quit smoking so I don't care about gettind my Taspo card much. Convenience stores are everywhere so you can buy cigarett even if you don't have your Taspo card.
Maybe I should start a new thread for this? I have been interested to know good Japanese movies. I have a cult bias. I watched "Blue Spring" ("Aoi haru") this weekend, and I thought it was very interesting. I'm also looking into getting Wild Zero. Does anyone else have any recommendations?
>>439
Have you watched Pornostar? It's the first film by the director of Blue Spring. It has plenty of flaws, but I think in some ways that makes it more interesting to watch, and the good stuff about it is really very good.
If you're into these kind of movies one thing I'd really like to recommend is going through Tsukamoto Shinya's filmography (from Tetsuo to Viral, anway). It's fascinating to watch the way his style and themes develop and change, maybe more so than with any other director I've come across. If you'd rather not focus on one director like that you should at least watch Tetsuo, if you haven't already.
I could go on forever recommending stuff really, but to mention just a few across a bit of a range, there's Electric Dragon 80,000 V, Miike Takashi's Graveyard of Honour (the original is pretty good too, but Miike's is amazing), Ranpo Noir, Branded to Kill, and Tsuito no Zawameki. I don't know if you'll get that last one without spending a lot or using Share but it's more than worth a try.
Since we're talking about movies at the moment, anybody know of a good martial arts film that doesn't include the silly over-the-top flying leaps (a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)?
Many girls all over the world today see Korean guys as romantic, manly, smart, and sexy.
Sure, that's all perfectly correct.
Korean guys treat girls gently and nicely, meaning they are romantic.
Korean guys go through a hard-studying experience, meaning they are quite smart.
Korean guys train themselves both mentally and phisically, meaning they are manly and sexy.
Those elements of Korean guys are appealing to girls all around the world.
In addition, Korean guys are enjoying their popularity thanks to Korean Wave.
Korean Wave gives girls all over the world a chance to see Korean guys on TV and the Internet.
Those girls started to worship Korean guys since the Wave caught attention from the world media.
Now quite a number of girls are dreaming of finding a Korean guy as their boyfriend/husband.
We have to admit that Korean guys are most competitive under the current circumstance everywhere in this world.
We should be proud of it!! :)
Can I ask a question here?
I wanna post about a regulation is discussing in Japan on Wakachan.
It's concerned with Anime, Manga and so on.
Which board should I post this regulation on?
Chinese nuclear tests in East Turkestan 1of3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjwcj1ysAaU
Chinese nuclear tests in East Turkestan 2of3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oEs8iQGEfw
Chinese nuclear tests in East Turkestan 3of3
I'm being quite desperate right now. I've been trying to post an comment on the 2ch boards since more than 5 hours (no kidding!) trying everything you could imagine, but nothing works.
I've tried to use proxys. Got >>340's response, even though I reloaded plenty of times it didn't work either.
I tried these proxy browser sites. All of them were banned.
I downloaded senyou browsers. Same as above, it's useless.
Is there even any chance of being able to post on the other 2ch forums?! I feel like giving up after 5 hours of intesive searching and despair D: