日本語 けたい with SMS or MMS

[tori_ningen_fan]

Gaijin here trying to figure out how to use 日本語 on my phone for SMS or MMS. Does anyone know how to do this with a non-Japan phone? Right now I have a Palm Treo with J-OS installed (http://simple-palm.com/) It works great for writing memo's but the characters get garbled when I send them over SMS or MMS to a computer or phone. I'd love to get a Japanese phone but as far as I can tell Japanese phones may work in the US for Japanese account holders but can't work with a USA based account.

I would really like to know what may be working for you.

ありがとう

[Jason]

Chances are it won't work outside of Japan. US devices just aren't equiped to handle Japanese characters.

[JockZon]

Japanese cell phones uses the email-protocol when texting each other, thus they can use japanese characters. We in the west use the SMS- and MMS-protocols which only handles ASCII, I think (common letters, some uncommon letters, numbers, punctuation marks and other weird signs as #@^<> etc)

[Fedgrub]

I've always wondered about this myself, its a bit disappointing it won't work here in Australia!

[jemstone]

here in sg, we are able to send and receive sms in chinese, so i'm not sure if the current sms or mms protocol are restricted to ascii only.

maybe the cellphone gotta have a firmware that supports japanese language?

[Fedgrub]

What does SG stand for?

[Shaydwyrm]

Well, jemstone's in Singapore, though I certainly wouldn't have figured it out either from just sg...

[Fedgrub]

Should have done a search earlier... haha

[jemstone]

aahahh わるい　わるい
yea... "sg" is singapore. too used to typing it abbreviated... =P　ごめんね

[Fedgrub]

Now down to my last mystery... Are you a girl or boy? Your name is unisex. haha

[jemstone]

haahahahha! おとこ　です =D

no more mystery!

[tori_ningen_fan]

Hey everyone, thanks for your replies. jemstone, I think it is simply a matter of getting the software to support 日本語. Unfortunately, I can't find any phones in the USA with the Japanese language as an OEM option.
JockZon, are you sure about the ASCII only support? My ぎりのおかあさん used her English/日本語 Soft-Bank phone at my home in the USA recently. She sent and received 日本語 with no trouble. I couldn't figure out which US network she was roaming on but it appears that the capability exists here.

I'll keep looking for a solution and keep this thread alive with anything I find.

Thanks

[jkeyz15]

It seems like it's your phones ability to encode/decode Japanese characters. There may possibly be a hack for it to download into your phone.

On another note: I prefer email over sms, but most people here in the States do not know how to use their phone for email.

[tori_ningen_fan]

I assume your referring to a blackberry type device with push email support? Your right SMS is terrible. Especially on a CDMA network with a 100 character limit.
This looks interesting but I don't understand what exactly they are offering or why I would actually need it.

http://www.namikiteru.com/en/index.html

[jkeyz15]

No. I don't want carry that monsterous thing around, nor do I need it.

Right now I have a KRZR, it's nothing great, but it's ok. Almost, if not all, providers have email services to link with your phone. Most people just don't know about it (due to promotion of sms). Then there is some providers who charge crappy internet download fees.