Sugoi!!! Something I heard this before, but I never tried….
Very very nice!

I was already using it and I think it’s a MUST for whoever is learning japanese!
There’s a tool in google that let you translate pages
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
and even www.excite.jp lets you translate pages, there’s a firefox plugin for this too.

I’ve also been using this plug-in for a while.. I actually feel guilty when I turn it on, like I’m taking the easy way out instead of learning to read the Kanji.

Hopefully, I’ll be fixing the latter soon - I’ll be in Osaka in 2 weeks and will do my best to track down a copy of Kanji Sonomama for the Nintendo DS. I could easily buy it here, but I figure, as long as I’m going…

Rikaichan should’ve come with a warning. I have not been able to stop visiting and reading all sorta Japanese sites since installing it. My productivity have dropped to zero. lol.

But thanks for introducing it. It is truly handy.

Another hint for using rikaichan, If you have a word document or any other kind of file on your computer, copy and paste the word into the google search bar (or any other input box in firefox) and you can use rikaichan to find the meaning. I always do this with song names from itunes.

Another cool thing about Rikaichan is that it is available for use with Thunderbird (the email client from Mozilla, the makers of Firefox).

That should be, “you can hover over”

Here’s a tip for reading email if you don’t have Thunderbird:
1) Copy the text of the email.
2) Paste it into Text Edit or some other word processing program that can save as html
3) Save as .html
4) Use Firefox to say, “File, Open File”
5) Voila! (Use rikaichan to help you read the email text.)

It seems like a lot of steps, but it goes fast!

Mina-san, Thanks for all the rikaichan tips!!!

Never mind I disabled peraperakun and rikaichan came back.
How do I use the Names Dictionary?

Caution to new users: rikaichan will not work with “images of characters”, only with straight text.

[…] * What if you can’t read Japanese? If you use Firefox and/or Thunderbird then I highly recommend Rikaichan, an indispensable tool for reading Japanese and for checking your own. I was just considering writing up how to install/use it when I noticed that Japanesepod101 have just posted a complete lesson on the subject! […]

Thanks Jason, another useful tip! I had the names dictionary installed, but never really figured out how to use it.

Also, another tip for using Rikai-chan to read your emails. Just use gmail! Then you can read and write emails from within Firefox. Actually it is useful sometimes when you are writing an email, if you are unsure about a kanji you have used, you can enable rikaichan and hover over the word to check you used the correct kanji.

Hello,

I had RikaiChan for quite sometime now but i didn’t know the need to install the name dictionary. The ’shift’ hotkey was new information too.

Thanks alot!! This is great!

JP101 crew and listeners!

Great video and tutorials for all listeners!

I already have that on my computer a long time ago.
but what I’m surprise is that at this point there was still listeners that didn’t knew about Rikaichan and firefox! WOW! lets start learning computer classes so we don’t be so innocent. S_R_C

Thanks a lot JP101 team! I didn’t know Rikaichan at all, and it’s amazing.

And for me it’s also so cool that there is a french-japanese dictionnary (and not only english-japanese)…

Great video! I heard that it was possible to make rikaichan display romaji too…

Any idea how to do that ?

Wow! Thank you sooo much! I had installed Rikaichan but somehow missed the step about toggling it on and so I couldn’t get it to work. I thought maybe it was a Windows only thing. Grrr. Now I’ve got it working and it looks great.

I have successfully installed the FireFox according to Peter’s audio instruction. However for installation of rikaichan, I clicked on the topic of the lesson can be found here at News #45. When I click on the World Dictionary, under Japanese - English, I click on Edit , but there is NO…”Allow from Polar Cloud” as instructed by Peter.

I just click on INSTALL under Japanese-English, WORLD DICTIONARY, and save in Desktop. When I try to open the Rikaichan_en_1_04, Windows IE shows cannot recognise.

Can someone teach me step by step how to install Rikaichan, cos I am computer NUTS.
Thanks in advance.

To all the Rikaichan users

I have failed to install rikaichan in my computer

Can someone help, pleeassssssssee, I am the computer nuts again.

To all the kind soul, Rikaichan user

Pls help!

First of all, thanks to Jason.

I have managed to open the Video and followed the instructions and seems to manage to have installed the 3 dictionaries and get to Yahoo Japan & the wonders of RIKAICHAN.

After that when I closed it, I could find any Rikaichan’s icon on my desk top except MOZILLA FIREFOX & FOXIT READER appear on my desktop.

When I go to Mozilla Firefox, called out Yahoo Japan, and point to the Kanjis, but NO TRANSLATION OR so call the MEANINGS appear. I tried to R/Click, but could’nt fing TOOGLE RIKAICHAN. Why is it so??

Please help me again.
Thanks a million.

Thanks for Japanesepod101.
Rikaichan is so wonderful, it really helps a lot!!!!!!

can you turn this function on and off? i want to use it, but my family probably does not want to see translations whenever they log on.

日本語を勉強するために、努力や忍耐、好奇心などが必要ですが、ソフトを通して知らない言語に身につけることは一つの挑戦ですが、何よりも極めて楽しいことです。このソフトを利用しながら、是非、自分の想像力を引き出し、日本語を身につけてください。しかし、無視しない一つのことを言っておきます。すべてはまず自らの努力です。ソフトはどうしても、ただの補足道具です。

thank you Peter and Sakura !

this tool is amazing, really helps my study !