A Big Blooper
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: If I only had a brain!
So, I had the bright idea to buy a Japanese/English electronic dictionary in California while I was there over my winter break. My Japanese friends whip out their compact, light "jishos" and translate away when we are together, and I wanted my own. I figured that buying one in the states would be better since it would come with an English manual (very important feature!). I tried to no avail to find one in Santa Rosa so I reverted back to the Internet to research. I found that most electronic translators can be ordered over the internet and sent to Japan for a reasonable price. One of my New Year's resolutions was to go back to Japan and order one. So last week, I did some more research on prices and features of these electronic marvels. There are from one to 9 dictionaries installed on some of the puppies. There is a website created by an English speaking man in Japan who has written a lot of evaluations on many models and I read all the different comparisons and recommendations that he offered. I decided on a Canon model that I could buy right here in Japan and then download an English manual. So off I went to Midori and, luckily, I found a really nice English speaking employee, Ms. Shimizu, to help me with purchasing this wonderful device. She didn't know much about them but got a salesman to help me and she translated. He was very hesitant to sell me the model I wanted for 22,000 yen (a mere $200+). Well, I was confident, and purchased one anyway over his strong hesitant concerns.
The very next day, my friend, Didik, came over with a Japanese friend who graciously helped me install the batteries and fired it up. You just can't beleive how excited I was - even tho this guy, too, was very hesitant. We went through all 9 dictionairies and, much to my chagrin, discovered that, yes, I could type in "cat" into any of these dictionaries but the only thing that it generated was kanji words!!!! Oh, no. Not like my paperback dictionary where I can look up an English word and get a Japanese word spelled out in Roman letters that when sounded out come out Japanese. Oh, no, this just expects you to read the kanji characters. Well, if I knew 40,000 kanji characters then I could probably speak Japanese and not need to spend $200 on a #$%&$#&%# dictionary. So, it's back to Midori the very next day with my proverbial "tail between my legs." I was very relieved (after sitting patiently for about 15 minutes while a few different managers discussed my stupidity) to receive a full refund. Actually, they were very polite and helpful and didn't make me feel any stupider than I already felt. So, my friend, Didik, suggests that I check with a few friends before making anymore expensive purchases, and I may just follow his advice from now on. So, if anyone knows where I can get an electronic dictionary that will translate from English into something Japanese that I can read, I would be most deeply grateful. Arigato gozaimasu