Japanese titles in the PDF?

[watermen]

The title of each lessons is given in English only, can we have it in Japanese as well?

[markystar]

i originally wanted to do japanese titles, but there is a boring, technical reason that we don't.

the free lessons are distributed thru feeds other than iTunes. for example, if you come across someone who uses our RSS Widget (maybe on myspace or their website or blog), you might have a chance to find jpod101 by mistake. if you don't study japanese and the japanese text comes thru on your computer it will probably display as a bunch of meaningless characters unless you install the japanese language pack.
but, basically, everybody in the world's computer can display the Latin alphabet. so we do that to keep things nice and tidy.

now, we COULD add a japanese translation of the titles of the PDF's, but something thing's don't translate. for example "monkey business" does not mean ”猿のお仕事” and "a very bosozoku new years" is a parody of the brady bunches "a very brady christmas" which again, loses its humor in japanese. granted, a lot of them could be translated directly... but some are impossible.

i've thought about doing it before, so give us some time to think it over.

[watermen]

i originally wanted to do japanese titles, but there is a boring, technical reason that we don't.

the free lessons are distributed thru feeds other than iTunes. for example, if you come across someone who uses our RSS Widget (maybe on myspace or their website or blog), you might have a chance to find jpod101 by mistake. if you don't study japanese and the japanese text comes thru on your computer it will probably display as a bunch of meaningless characters unless you install the japanese language pack.
but, basically, everybody in the world's computer can display the Latin alphabet. so we do that to keep things nice and tidy.

now, we COULD add a japanese translation of the titles of the PDF's, but something thing's don't translate. for example "monkey business" does not mean ”猿のお仕事” and "a very bosozoku new years" is a parody of the brady bunches "a very brady christmas" which again, loses its humor in japanese. granted, a lot of them could be translated directly... but some are impossible.

i've thought about doing it before, so give us some time to think it over.

I don't mean the RSS thing. I mean IN the PDF. So only those who subscribe will see it.

I understand there is always no equivalent translation. If there is no equivalent, you can come out with an independent Japanese version. Which can create topic for discussion too, it will be very interesting from the point of learning.

[markystar]

yeah, i know you meant in the PDF.
however, the titles are auto-generated from the original, so it'd involve a whole lot of code writing.

on the other hand, i like your idea about starting a thread and doing this as a community-based activity. i personally would love to get involved with you and anyone else interested in trying to translate the lesson titles. it actually sounds like a lot of fun and a good challenge for everyone to be a part of!

first, let's take a show of hands first and see whose interested!
if a lot of people are we could start a section of the message for it. and we could start a thread for each level and systematically translate all of them!!


マーキー