A shiny new toy!

I've finally gotten around to getting me a very spangly, all singing and dancing electronic dictionary; complete with a little scribble pad, so that I can write in kanji to find out what they mean in English and how to pronounce it in Japanese.

...now you must realise, that when I say *I* got round to buying me a dictionary...what really happened was that I harassed my two favourite people in my lab, who are amazing and not only hold their own languages in their head, but also English AND Japanese...they are my permanent saviours...who I regularly ply with my cake as some form of incentive.
So, this was an arduous task (not for me obviously...for my very kind translators)...which first of all involved trying to find suitable dictionary. So, we looked at all the ones which have scribble pads: Casio Exword and Sharp Papyrus. Then we looked at a massive summary table stating what each model contained.

Some of the dictionaries are aimed at school children; to help with learning kanji, some are for Business and some for learning languages. Different models have different dictionaries and in general the more you pay the more inbuilt dictionaries you get with your electronic thing of joy. There is also capacity for expansion; which can be either through installing a CD via your computer and a USB cable, or via a SD card - however, there is only one SD card slot, and the SD cards tend to be double the price of the installation CD's.

This is all lovely, because...should I want a Chinese dictionary on my device or upgrade to bigger. better dictionaries, the capability is all there! hurrah!
I love the way the Japanese think these things through!

Anyway! After spending a good afternoon of two very patient peoples' time trying to find a dictionary with good Japanese to English/English to Japanese dictionaries and Chinese dictionaries, we all decided that the Casio Exword XD-SW9400 would be the one for wayway. Which was all entirely groovy and which led to trying to find it for a sensible price online. When we did find one online for free postage and everything, it was out of stock... *sob*


A couple of days later, Friday night 9pm, it's suddenly in stock! [yes, I was probably a bit too enthusiastic with the checking of the website] where by I tried to take on a Japanese Internet ordering web page, and failed. I didn't think it would be that hard but there are a million ways to pay for your goods; at the combini, through a bank transfer, through the post office, in cash when they deliver...some methods cost more than others. The cheapest worked out to be doing a bank transfer at a cash machine [which I'll get on to later!-god this has been complex]. But I, in fact, saw none of this... all I saw was a space to write my name and details...SO, I called in the calvary...well Lan and she was her amazing self and did it all for me while I was at home on IM and she was in college. She sorted it all out for me. GENIUS.

So, Monday; I go to the Mistubishi UFJ ATM and click on the 'English - yes I'm stupid and can't cope with a Japanese ATM' button, BUT it doesn't have the 'bank transfer' button! The last time I had to do this whole bank transfer thing, I luckily ran into a friend who was with her Japanese tutor who was showing her how to do it, so helped me to do it too. Anyway, I ended up going all the way to the actual bank and got one of the people to talk me through it in Japanese; whereby he pointed at what I needed to press and I did what he said. It was all over in 5 mins.

By the time I get back to my desk, I've got a confirmation email from the people I paid, saying that they got my money and they shall deliver today or tomorrow.

Sukoi!

It was handed to me a couple of hours ago and I've been trying it out, and I think it's pretty damn good, it's been happily recognising all the kanji I've put in so far; even though I'm convinced that my stroke orders are all over the place. Unfortunately, the manual is, obviously, in Japanese...I guess I could use the dictionary to work out what the menu says to work out how to use the dictionary...but sounds just like just the type of thing that would blatantly bring up a 'cyclic reference error' in Excel... anyway, I much prefer just mucking about with it...If I'm really enthusiastic I'll take it someone who would know better about these kind of things and see if they can point out some neat tricks on it.