Benefits of Switching OS to Japanese

[SlickWilly440]

So I was able to obtain a Japanese version of Windows Xp and am currently running it in Vmware's Virtual Machine software. (typing this post in this OS). So all the icons, text, menue, etc are in Japanese.

I was wondering, for those who are using an OS in Japanese and all applications in Japanese, if you have noticed any long-term benefits in terms of improving your Japanese Literacy. Or is it just a big hassle to navigate the OS? (Depends on the persons current literacy). Or did you find that you could cheat by just naviagting the OS without any reading b/c all the icons and location of menus are the same as the English version of the OS?

Thanks,

SlickWilly440

[ミュー]

I suggest it. It is a pain in the ass at first, but it's one of the best kinds of immersion you can get without being in Japan. Just "seeing" Japanese with some frequency is the major benefit.

[mawande]

You get pretty familiar with certain situational kanji quickly. "delete" "Play". It only gets tricky if you can't understand enough of a question to answer properly and then screw up a program or your whole computer because you said yes when you should have said no. Or vice-versa.

[japanat]

You'll memorize many of the commands really quickly, but that doesn't exactly benefit your Japanese fluency. Does Windows English help someone become fluent: New, Open, Close, Save, Save As.., etc. Having the Japanese OS is good if you want to make forms with more than just 2 kanji fonts, though.

Troubleshooting is when you'll really be challenged...

[qwert]

When you open the command prompt, do you have to type everything in Japanese? Do programming languages come in different languages?

[SlickWilly440]

^
Okay, I opened the command prompt and I can't seem to be able to type in Japanese, but I can copy and past Japanese text into the command prompt and it appears fine. If you type help in the command prompt, the explainantions for the English command words are in Japanese. However this might be a problem if you have folder names in Japanese and you need to access the directory from the command prompt; being that would need to cut and past the directory name since you can't type it out in Japanese. I could be wrong.

I installed JCreator Lite and was able to type text in English, didn't write a program though. I have heard that most programming language are in English, well the syntax is at least. The explaination of that syntax and the text that you would output to a Japanese user would be in Japanese I believe.

[qwert]

Oh, wow, thanks for doing that for me. That is really weird that programming languages don't come in different languages. I suppose this means English is pretty much essential for most working professionals in Japan. At least proficient in the English required for the technical field. That sucks for them. =(

[SlickWilly440]

Here is the JAVA API in Japanese, all the syntax is in English, but explanation is in Japanese: http://sdc.sun.co.jp/java/docs/j2se/1.4/ja/docs/ja/api/index.html

[mikem]

Due to sloppy programming, lazy programmers, and just random support for Asian languages, unicode, code pages and everything else ... I stick with an English OS. The legacy issues just suck too much on Windows. (Mew only has Macs so for once I'm going to have to whole-heatedly disagree with his recommendation.)

I do have applications, like iTunes, that I've convinced to run in Japanese. However for me it was much easier for the base OS to be English based, English codepage, English fonts etc. Then I just use AppLocale or other tricks to get the few applications I want to behave.

Oh, wow, thanks for doing that for me. That is really weird that programming languages don't come in different languages. I suppose this means English is pretty much essential for most working professionals in Japan. At least proficient in the English required for the technical field. That sucks for them. =(

Most of the programmers I know can read a book on programming in English with very little difficultly. However they can't hold the most basic conversation in English at all. They also usually don't write English very well. It is pretty useful though cause you can describe technical problems in English and they get it right away. I guess in their heads its just an extension of the world of computers. I seriously don't think they see English as an actual separate language.

So when Japanese programmers name functions there's about an 80% chance that the name will be in Japanese. I've also never once seen English comments here.

Also, as a programmer, you might consider a descriptive function name "English", but I can tell you from experience that "normal" people do not agree.

Oh, and one last thing. The syntax of a programming language is fixed, but everything else is usually localized. So when you get error messages you get them in Japanese. :hat:

[ミュー]

(Mew only has Macs so for once I'm going to have to whole-heatedly disagree with his recommendation.)
I just remembered how bad the localization issue sucked in XP.

Get a Mac. Macs play nicely in Japanese. XP, not so much...

[mikem]

Vista has really good language support ... unfortunately I think the issues of bad programming will plague MS operating systems eternally.

[SlickWilly440]

^
What do you mean by bad programming?

I think what Microsoft has done with Vista up to this point is amazing. Sure it's not 100 percent perfect, but what OS or application is perfect. Just remember that it has been worse before and making improvements is what counts.

[atomiton]

^
What do you mean by bad programming?

I think what Microsoft has done with Vista up to this point is amazing. Sure it's not 100 percent perfect, but what OS or application is perfect. Just remember that it has been worse before and making improvements is what counts.
Ick！ vista's language support isn't spectacular. It's normal. I mean, compared to xp it is great I guess but it's still lagging behind osx when it comes to language support. One click and I can completely change the I'd to Japanese. Not to start a flame war but if you're learning Japanese you should seriously consider a mac. Built from the ground up to support it.

[mikem]

What do you mean by bad programming?


Most American/Western programmers, especially on Windows, only consider character strings to be 1-byte and stored in the codepage of their native operating system.

So when you put it on an OS with a different native codepage, epsecially one like Japanese that is multi-byte, you see a lot of problems.

Also, Windows programmers tend to be sloppy with fonts and layouts. (Indeed Microsofts tools are mostly to blame here.) So when the default font gets changed from the English/European one to an Asia one things go to hell.

These are fundamental problems that aren't going to go away until a whole generation of programmers that are fully aware of these issue get into the top dog positions in information technology.

That's just a long way of saying never gonna happen.

One click and I can completely change the I'd to Japanese.

This is complete bullshit and hyperbole. You can't even get to that setting in a single click. Even if the edge goes to Apple the effort to change languages in Mac OS 10 and Vista is very equivalent.

The part where Apple really wins is the fact that no one really makes applications for the Mac so most applications behave or just default to English.