What About A Japanese Pandora Community?

[timofonic]

Hello.

I'm a staff member of OpenPandora.ES, an authorized Pandora community in Spanish. I motivated the webmaster and owner of the site into creating the actual community because I felt that there wasn't a website for Spanish people that supported this system in a dedicated way.

Japan has a very good homebrew and independent developer community, their homebrew games are known as "doujin soft" and it is even sold to others like with manga done by hobbyists. Some of those people finally enter into the professional world.

Japanese culture and language barrier can make harder that potential users and developers know Pandora and get one. A Pandora community created for the Japanese people and designed for their likes and preferences could help a lot on creating a community of users and talented developers from Japan interested in Pandora.

I don't know if there's an official Pandora distributor in Japan, but this is an important topic too. I see people from Japan can buy a Pandora from the GBAX site, but maybe that isn't so comfortable as a site in their native language.

I saw a few Japanese people or with Japanese knowledge in this site, so maybe they can be interested in helping with this idea. I could help configuring a CMS like Joomla or Plone, and other people I know can help too.

There are very interesting opportunities in other Asian countries too, like South Korea

To everyone involved, I'd like to know what you think about this idea and if you can help make it possible.

Regards.

PS: I'm posting this on both forums (GP32X and OpenPandora.org forums) for a broader attention.

 

[PoisonedV]

I never saw japanese homebrew & indie game creation as 'centralized' as alot of the western stuff is. that said, go for it, would be nice to see what they can come up with- alot of my favorite freeware games are from japanese game authors (tekkyuuman?)

 

[Drack]

Can we get any statistics on how many of the first batch are headed to Japan?

With such a small community (relatively speaking), it may only be a few people there with the device, until subsequent batches. This problem can be remedied by putting up versions of both the ordering and marketing webpages translated into Japanese.

For rudimentary translation, I can help. Nothing really advanced, though.

 

[kloplop321]

Moonshell for the DS was made by a japanese person, There are some good people out there for homebrew

 

[masoukishi]

Although I'm a total newbie when it comes to software/webpage dev, I can help with translation. I grew up in the states, but I was born in Japan and my parents forced me to speak japanese in my house, so my japanese isn't all that bad. I have experience translating speeches and text, so I can be of some support.

 

[kloplop321]

Well the first step is to make it available to them openly in their language

 

[geise69]

Meloncoke has done stuff for the gp2x scene and has been following the pandora since the beginning.

http://gp32blu.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gp2x/

 

[timofonic]

Any way of making Meloncoke visit this forum post?

PS: I emailed him, I hope he reads this forum post.

 

[quadomatic]

Cave Story!!!!

 

[timofonic]

When can we start this site? Please send me a PM so we can contact all over email.

I also want to contact with the OpenPandora Ltd. staff about this, as all Pandora communities need some kind of official support.

 

[Windwalker]

When can we start this site? Please send me a PM so we can contact all over email.

I also want to contact with the OpenPandora Ltd. staff about this, as all Pandora communities need some kind of official support.

Meloncoke already regeived the email from you.
スペインのOpenPandora.ESからメールが届きました[2008/11/03]
I receive the Email from Openpandora.es.

What About A Japanese Pandora Community?[gp32x.de Forum]
ここでMELONCOKEをご紹介いただいたようで、OpenPandora.ESのスタッフからメールをいただきました
My MELONCOKE was introduced in here,so I got Email from the staff of Ponepandora.es.

(written by MELONCOKE)I got mail from staff of OpenPandora.ES. Thank you very much.


And I got the email too.
I think Meloncoke is the best person in Japan,I recommend him.

 

[timofonic]

Hello.

Thanks a lot for the reply to all. Yes, Meloncoke replied me over email.

I'm a bit busy with some real life stuff, but I hope to soon prepare some way of communicating about this. I registered a group in Google Groups, please send your good email addresses by PM so I can invite you to this group.

Meloncoke needs to improve his English skills hehe but despite of that, I'm able to understand him, I even have problems understanding certain native English people. He's a very nice guy and very interested on this machine, I think he can be a good leader for the Japanese community.

Regards.

EDIT: Meloncoke is now an administrator of the Pandora Japan group, he has now the same privilieges in the group as me. You can contact both with him or me for being added to the group.

 

[Windwalker]

Hello.

Thanks a lot for the reply to all. Yes, Meloncoke replied me over email.

I'm a bit busy with some real life stuff, but I hope to soon prepare some way of communicating about this. I registered a group in Google Groups, please send your good email addresses by PM so I can invite you to this group.

Meloncoke needs to improve his English skills hehe but despite of that, I'm able to understand him, I even have problems understanding certain native English people. He's a very nice guy and very interested on this machine, I think he can be a good leader for the Japanese community.

Regards.

EDIT: Meloncoke is now an administrator of the Pandora Japan group, he has now the same privilieges in the group as me. You can contact both with him or me for being added to the group.

訳：現在Meloncokeがパンドラ日本グループの管理者である、彼は現在、私としてグループで同じpriviliegesを持っています。 あなたは、グループに追加されるために彼か私と共に両方に連絡できます。

管理者が日本とスペインにいるということです。めんどくせえことに巻き込まれたか？という感想

MELONCOKEは"Pandora Japan"グループの管理ができるようになったらしいですが、様子見、または管理を降りる方向です
日本語が使えるのかと質問したところ、担当者によると”投稿は日本語でもいいが、英文に翻訳してほしい”という回答でした
書くのは日本人で読むのは世界中の人ってことなんだろうけど、[面倒くさい翻訳とかを使わずに]英語で書ける人って少ないと思います

日本語コミュニティだと思っていましたが、日本語英語、日本人外国人が入り乱れるコミュニティを想像しています
書く人の大半が日本人、読む人の大半が外国人みたいなことが起こりえる。逆も然り

問い合わせのメールも英文なので、2倍3倍の手間がかかって効率が悪い

"Pandora Japan"が外国人に管理されてるのっておかしくね？
勝手にグーグルグループを作られて、使い勝手もわからん

まとめ：余計なことはしないで、いままでどおりの情報配信をしていきたいと思います

Meloncoke don't want to do that because

1.Now administrator of the Pandora Japan group are in Japan and Spain,it must be the cause of a problem.Don't you think it was strange?
2.He don't know how to use the google group,but you make it in Spanish(not Japanese).
3.Opinion exchange in English？　something important thngs must be lost in translation,like now.And it's Troublesome thing.

You want translate the Japanese post to English. who translate it? you?
Do you know how many Japanese can written sometihing in English? This answer is "ALOMOST NOTHING"as you known.
Have you ever imagine the reason why Japanese games and game developping community are so defferent from non Japanese? Because Japanese can make game without English.It's very simple.
Japanese community need infomation about English dev-kits.So they translate it in Japanese by Japanese.
But you need to imagine that why Japanese need the Japanese infomation for English? What is the Japanese advantage?
I(not Meloncoke) think,Japanese infomation must translate by non Japanese(=yourself).

Meloncoke decide that he will continue his own way,not your way(Using google group,and translate the post in english) it might forced to pay the too much cost for him.

 

[AireTamStorm]

Meloncoke don't want to do that because

1.Now administrator of the Pandora Japan group are in Japan and Spain,it must be the cause of a problem.Don't you think it was strange?
2.He don't know how to use the google group,but you make it in Spanish(not Japanese).
3.Opinion exchange in English？　something important thngs must be lost in translation,like now.And it's Troublesome thing.

You want translate the Japanese post to English. who translate it? you?
Do you know how many Japanese can written sometihing in English? This answer is "ALOMOST NOTHING"as you known.
Have you ever imagine the reason why Japanese games and game developping community are so defferent from non Japanese? Because Japanese can make game without English.It's very simple.
Japanese community need infomation about English dev-kits.So they translate it in Japanese by Japanese.
But you need to imagine that why Japanese need the Japanese infomation for English? What is the Japanese advantage?
I(not Meloncoke) think,Japanese infomation must translate by non Japanese(=yourself).

Meloncoke decide that he will continue his own way,not your way(Using google group,and translate the post in english) it might forced to pay the too much cost for him.

This seems like a very preliminary/literal translation. My "kanji count" isn't that high, but everything I know I got pretty well. Anything I didn't know, well, theres perapera-kun for that.

Is the problem Spanish => English => Japanese or is it just English <=> Japanese? I'll agree that it does not many -any- sense to translate twice, as you can lose alot of detail from the first jump, let alone the second or even third. Round trip (a conversation) it is even worse.There are certain things you have translated that do not make much sense here, or are just incomplete.

If you put me in contact with him I may be able to work something out. I'm much better at speaking/listening than writing than reading (unfortunately due to the very few kanji I know, I learned by listening / talking). At this point, communicating from Spanish <=> Japanese without someone who can translate directly (and well) is a bad idea. It is best to start off with someone who can translate English <=> Japanese and then find more language resources beyond that.

 

[kloplop321]

don't use the mac translator!
I went to give the dog a very jumpy cow but the winter stopped us because of the snow.
becomes(when translated back to english
I did giving the jumpy cow to the dog very, but the winter we were halted because of the snow.

Use a human translator, I think they are much more trustworthy

 

[AireTamStorm]

don't use the mac translator!
I went to give the dog a very jumpy cow but the winter stopped us because of the snow.
becomes(when translated back to english
I did giving the jumpy cow to the dog very, but the winter we were halted because of the snow.

Use a human translator, I think they are much more trustworthy
Oh, that was a machine translation? *facepalm* CITE how you translate stuff. If you throw it through google or whatever, say so. No wonder it sounded fragmented and like a big pile of nonsense!

"Competence it is not! In the category!" :angry:

 

[Windwalker]

Those respons are the reason why Japanese never try to translate to English.

 

[benjiro]

Those responses are the reason why Japanese never try to translate to English.

Lets not over generalize please. If for instance the people ( like for instance, me, who speak Dutch/Flemish ), never try to translating because we make a errors during out translations, the nobody bothers going outside there own language.

There are more then plenty of people who can, want to translate jap -> eng, and visa versa. If there where not, how can anime, movie fansubs even exist. Machine translation? I think not.

The problem is probably more that the author of the game has a limited knowhow of English. Asking somebody to translate something for a different language region is not always easy. Its like asking a US person to translate his/her game to French. Like that is ever going to happen.

Whats needed is a Japanese speaking person who can help with the translation of the games. A different language community on the same board/group is never a good thing. One of the reason i prefer the standardization of English on Forums. There is nothing more fun, as finding out ED has posted important information on the German forums, and nobody in the English community knows about it until somebody translates ( and ofcourse, people don't have the habit of checking different language forums ).

 

[AireTamStorm]

I'm very much willing to help and try to get to an understanding here, I just need a better description of what is going on right now, what the goals are and what methods we are thinking may work. If I look at it, don't understand it, I can ask for clarification. But if I ask for clarification only to hear that it was machine-translated, sure I am going to get frustrated. I apologize that I misunderstood.

Let me say that again:
大変失礼な事を言いました。すみませんでした。

So, lets start over, and go over again:
-What do we want to do?
-What do we need to have to do it?
-Where do you think we should start?

 

[Zeno Arrow]

So, lets start over, and go over again:
-What do we want to do?
-What do we need to have to do it?
-Where do you think we should start?

Create a dedicated Pandora website and forum for Japanese speakers. I'm not able to help, but that's what I think would be of most use to the Japanese Pandora community. With that in mind wouldn't it be best to start collecting together a list of people who are willing and able to help out (on whatever level). Meloncoke is clearly one of these people. I would suggest we also need at least one person to handle English/Japanese translation and at least one person to handle setting up the website and forum (even if they don't speak Japanese). You'll also need a name for this website.