anki on android phone / japanese support

[oshibai]

hi.

i just posted this on the anki forum, might have been the wrong choice
after all^^ so ill copy/paste it here:



"hi.

ive been using anki to learn japanese for some time now, but only on
my desktop computer so far. because of that this is a bit
uncomfortable to me and that i want to use my time on bus/train more
efficiently i have decided to buy one of those "smartphones" to be
able reviewing on the go.

now that i have read through various reviews and articles, i have
finally managed to make a decision on which device to buy, yet i got
one unanswered question: will i be able to run an anki program,
including japanese character support, on this device (going to be an
android phone)?

so far i have figured that there is this ankidroid program available,
either from the market or directly from the project's page. however,
description only shows support for japanese input for the version
downloaded from the project's site. in additional, rooting of your
device is required.

now all this is a bit confusing. im not against rooting and stuff, but
i would like to be able to use ankidroid with japanese without having
to root my device because of warranty issues in germany.

can anyone help me out with this one? those phones are pretty pricy so
i really would like to know that in advance.

regards"

[Nicolas Raoul]

Hi Oshibai!

Indeed this is the place for AnkiDroid questions.

> one unanswered question: will i be able to run an anki program,
> including japanese character support, on this device (going to be an
> android phone)?

I got my phone in Japan so of course it had Japanese...
Other users on the list, did anyone had to do something special before
Japanese fonts get displayed?

> description only shows support for japanese input for the version
> downloaded from the project's site.

Sorry for our poor communication. In fact both are the same version,
same features.

> in additional, rooting of your device is required.

It is the last solution if the font you want is not available.
Another solution might be to use a custom font (no rooting), though it
is not a very stable feature yet.

I hope others can tell about their experience with Japanese on Android, thanks!
Nicolas Raoul

[Robert Siemer]

On 26/07/11 22:25, oshibai wrote:

> now that i have read through various reviews and articles, i have
> finally managed to make a decision on which device to buy,

Which is?

Robert

[oshibai]

google nexus s, cheapest i can get it in germany is about 300 euro. i
believe that it fits my needs, except for that there is no micro sd
slot :/

so, if i get it right there is japanese input included in the market
version of ankidroid, e.g. no rooting needed?

[Wisam]

I did not know that you need root to get Japanese to display but my phone (Evo 4G) is already rooted with a custom rom so I have no clue but Japanese works out of the box.
With that Nexus S of yours it has Gingerbread (Android 2.3.4) so it is the latest update version of Android.
The new 0.7 version is also coming out in a week with better language support.
One way is to try a display phone in the store and install AnkiDroid on it and a Japanese deck and see. You can ask the store people to help you saying that you gonna buy it for that.

[Michał Sylwester]

I'm using AnkiDroid on not rooted Milestone 1 and it works fine with Japanese decks. Actually, I'm using it for about a year, though different Android and AnkiDroid versions, without any major issues.

There are also at least 2 free Japanese IMs in market, and I never felt much need to look for anything better (I'm not using them much though).

[Rachels]

On android 2.2, and 2.3 also, as far as I am aware, you can read all Japanese fine except that there are few characters that look wrong, and I believe this is because the system is using a Chinese font. Its annoying but not impossible to live with. You can, of course, root the phone and add a proper Japanese font. If you don't do that, you can try to use apps that you can find that include their own Japanese font support. Those that I am aware of include Ankidroid, EBpocket - epwing dictionary viewer and also vertical text viewer (for reading).

[Timo Nevalainen]

Haven't done anything special with my ankidroid(huawei U8800 or
something like that. cost me like 189e). Japanese writing look
alright. Okay so I can't verify whether kanji's are 100% correct since
I suck with kanji's but no boxes or anything appears. Hiragana's are
all good looking which is what I'm interested with :D

[oshibai]

to sum it up:

android should be able to display japanese correctly without any
tweaks, though it might be that characters are displayed in chinese
font (which would not be so good since i want to learn japanese). so,
if i wasnt satisfied with just this, i would still have the option of
downloading a free japanese IM from the market. and there is still the
possibility of rooting my device and adding proper japanese font to
it. di i get those right?

now i got another question. might be that what you guys posted before
includes this, but i want to make sure before i buy: you guys mostly
speak of displaying japanese characters. what about typing japanese,
which would require a japanese keyboard input? i want to create my own
japanese facts as well, so this also is very important to me.

[-=RelakS=-]

I am using AnkiDroid also with japanese deck
On my SGSII there is Android 2.3.3, so I can even use custom font.
If you don't like the lame android font, just put a "fonts" folder
into the AnkiDroid folder, copy the necessary font, rename it to match
the inner font name (e.g.: HGRKK_0.ttf -> HGSKYOKASHOTAI.ttf), and
have fun :)

Of course, the deck should contain the font name in the formattings or
in css.

[Rachels]

Japanese input is easy, through the free and excellent simeji keyboard. You type the kana and then select the appropriate kanji from the suggestions presented. Isn't this what is meant by Japanese IME?
Hand written kanji are available through multiling keyboard and kanji draw (both free), but that will not be as fast or error free. I hope this helps answer your questions.

[Rachels]

Also, I ask this here, since there are people who know how to write code for android... There are many apps available that will install a specific bew font into your system without the need to root the phone
Eg. font for galaxy sp, stylus flip font etc etc
Surely one of these could be easily adapted to add a Japanese font if someone with the necessary skills was willing to give it a try.

[oshibai]

Hi again.

I have finally purchased my Android phone and im eager to try out
AnkiDroid.

However, I still got one minor problem: I cannot find the
DroidSansJapanese font... the link provided under "adding support for
special characters on Android" unfortunetely is broken :/ If i get
things right (referring to this post:
http://groups.google.com/group/anki-android/browse_thread/thread/6e057b79584f6540#
), I have to install the font on my computer and use it for the
Japanese parts of my deck in order to display Japanese correctly on my
Android device(without characters being mixed up with Chinese ones)!?

Would be nice if you guys could help me out!

[Flavio Lerda]

Hello,

If you follow the instructions to use custom fonts at:

http://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/wiki/UsingCustomFonts

You can use any font you'd like, not only the Droid Sans Japanese

font and it does not require rooting your phone.

However, remember the name the font file correctly, i.e., matching

the font name as listed on the desktop when creating the card

template.

I hope this helps.

-Flavio

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[oshibai]

So, i can use any of the fonts Windows uses for displaying Japanese
characters (like MS Mincho)?

Now, i like the native font my Android device uses for displaying
Japanese text on the web. If i wanted to use this one, that would be
DroidSansJapanese right? I still would have to find that one, searched
a lot on the web, just cannot find a working one : (

On Sep 6, 10:17 pm, Flavio Lerda <fle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> If you follow the instructions to use custom fonts at:http://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/wiki/UsingCustomFonts
>
> You can use any font you'd like, not only the Droid Sans Japanese
> font and it does not require rooting your phone.
>
> However, remember the name the font file correctly, i.e., matching
> the font name as listed on the desktop when creating the card
> template.
>
> I hope this helps.
> -Flavio
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 8:31 AM, oshibai <patric...@web.de> wrote:
> > Hi again.
>
> > I have finally purchased my Android phone and im eager to try out
> > AnkiDroid.
>
> > However, I still got one minor problem: I cannot find the
> > DroidSansJapanese font... the link provided under "adding support for
> > special characters on Android" unfortunetely is broken :/ If i get
> > things right (referring to this post:
>

> >http://groups.google.com/group/anki-android/browse_thread/thread/6e05...

[Flavio Lerda]

If your device has a working Japanese font that you like, then you do

actually need to use a custom font. Custom fonts are used to replace

the existing font on the platform either because it is missing glyphs or

because it is not the font you want to use (handwritten kanji, for instance).

Is the problem you are experiencing that Chinese characters are shown

instead of Japanese ones?

Could you take screenshots of the browser with Japanese text and

AnkiDroid with the incorrectly displayed text?

Thanks,

-Flavio

[Flavio Lerda]

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Flavio Lerda <fle...@gmail.com> wrote:

If your device has a working Japanese font that you like, then you do

actually need to use a custom font. Custom fonts are used to replace

I made a typo: I meant "you do NOT actually need to use a custom font."

--
Flavio Lerda

[oshibai]

To be honest, I had not tried it out before (I just assumed it is the
same problem with every Android phone), but I did now.

For testing I used the same characters as B G in
http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://groups.google.com/group/anki-android/browse_thread/thread/6e057b79584f6540%23&usg=AFQjCNEG4XcA8WSWiNnbX_z_IwQ7oddn3w

Characters are the following: 将、化、直、今、値. The differences vary from
character to character, for 今 it is just the small stroke beneath the
"roof" while 将 and 直 are completely different.

So, I think I do not completely understand the problem at the moment
^^ My wife once in a while checks her emails on my phone and there
everything displays correctly (at least she didn't tell me it does
not, but im sure she would :p). Now, that means there is already a
font installed on Android that does display japanese script correctly,
doesn't it? Does this mean that i have to find out which font that is
and use it for the Anki Desktop card layout?

[Robert Siemer]

Oshibai, please help us out with the following things:

-Which phone do you have and where did you buy it?
-Under “settings -> language & keyboard -> select language”, what
languages do you have? If it’s more then ten, list only relevant
stuff, including any English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and
Korean (if there).
-Did you do already any rooting or installed after-market-firmwares?
Would you mind?
-Please, please, please make screen shots (pictures) AND write us here
the corresponding characters (text). Better also add a picture of what
you expect (any source is fine, just to see the character you wish to
get). It doesn’t help to refer to wikipedia or wherever, because there
I see only what my computer produces, which may be the one you get but
don’t want, the one you want or even a third version.

-Where is your wife from? Native Japanese?
-Send your wife the “bad” characters via email and let her read them
on your phone. – Do you see the same as under Ankidroid?
-Ask your wife what she thinks of the right/wrong characters. You may
be surprised: native speakers have a high tolerance to not-so-common
characters. Some don’t even notice the difference on the first
glance...


Regards,
Robert

On Sep 8, 2:54 pm, oshibai <patric...@web.de> wrote:
> To be honest, I had not tried it out before (I just assumed it is the
> same problem with every Android phone), but I did now.
>

> For testing I used the same characters as B G inhttp://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://groups.google.com/group/anki-...