REQUEST: Furigana in Evernote

[Zima 0]

HI.

 I'm using Evernote for my japanese study, and while taking notes, I've realized that there is feature which could make my life easier, but sadly, is not available yet in Evernote. The feature Im speaking of is ability to write furigana just like in microsoft word or libreoffice - highlighting a text which needs phonetic guide to be able to write, just above the highlighted word, text in smaller font.

 Are there any plans in making such an option?

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

HI.

I'm using Evernote for my japanese study, and while taking notes, I've realized that there is feature which could make my life easier, but sadly, is not available yet in Evernote. The feature Im speaking of is ability to write furigana just like in microsoft word or libreoffice - highlighting a text which needs phonetic guide to be able to write, just above the highlighted word, text in smaller font.

Are there any plans in making such an option?

Hi Zima. Welcome to the forums. The feature you are talking about sounds nice, but I think it is unlikely to make its way to Evernote for various reasons, not the least of which is the difficulty of implementing a kind of superscript for words across clients. It's not impossible, but I'd guess it is quite difficult and unlikely to impact a relatively large number of users.

Whatever they decide to do, a great option for now is to copy/paste a block of text into Google Translate and it will give you the readings of words along with a quirky English translation. It will even read it for you if you'd like. Copy/paste the Google results into a note and you've got everything.

Of course, Google often gets it wrong but so does Microsoft Word. Hopefully, you'll find this useful. By the way, another cool use for Evernote is to copy / paste Jim Breen's Dictionaries into Evernote. It's free, only takes a few seconds, and you have everything searchable anytime.

[flyingclimber 0]

I would really love to see this feature as clipping sites that utilize furigana through <rt> tags just looks wonky. Case example is clipping something like http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10015789181000/k10015789181000.html which causes the furigana to be placed after the text it phonetically spells out (which is wrong) and it requires the user to either hand delete all of it or put up with lots of duplication. 

 

Being able to to just see the superscript would be awesome and super useful for a broad japanese audience of elementary, middle, and high school students who I imagine would already be present within the evernote community. Super useful for us students as well.

 

thanks all

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Personally, I've never been bothered by it. In the case of the NHK page, just clip as a PDF. At any rate, we are unlikely to get "ruby" support (furigana is the alphabet, and "ruby" is the 5.5 size of the text), because it would take coding for a very small subset of the population. It is apparently possible in .xml, but I haven't tried to do it myself, so I don't know what kind of challenges the Evernote team would face with it. Usually, I write something as: 漢字（かんじ）in my notes and that seems sufficient to me.

[flyingclimber 0]

I wonder how hard it would be to write a clipper that removed all the furigana it found *and* placed both the kanji and furigana side by side below the text that was clipped.

 

Thus instead of

 

インターネットの通信販売つうしんはんばいの会社かいしゃ「楽天らくてん」

 

It would do　

 

インターネットの通信販売の会社「楽天」

....

通信販売 - つうしんはんばい

会社 - かいしゃ

楽天 - らくてん

 

Effectively this would collapse all kanji/furigana combinations but would give you a nice vocab list at the bottom. Thus you get the phonetic transcription without having to worry about implementing superscripts within the evernote engine.    

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I wonder how hard it would be to write a clipper that removed all the furigana it found *and* placed both the kanji and furigana side by side below the text that was clipped.

 

Thus instead of

 

インターネットの通信販売つうしんはんばいの会社かいしゃ「楽天らくてん」

 

It would do　

 

インターネットの通信販売の会社「楽天」

....

通信販売 - つうしんはんばい

会社 - かいしゃ

楽天 - らくてん

 

Effectively this would collapse all kanji/furigana combinations but would give you a nice vocab list at the bottom. Thus you get the phonetic transcription without having to worry about implementing superscripts within the evernote engine.    

 

My guess is that while technically feasible, it would be an inefficient use of limited resources, because it would only be targeting the small number of users who are learning Japanese as a second / foreign language. It's easily done on your own, though

 

My recommendation would be to clip those NHK pages for learners as PDFs. Then you have everything just as you want it. Or, better yet, if you want to read the regular Japanese NHK site, copy/paste the content into Jim Breen's text/word translator.

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?9T

 

For example, this sentence below from the top page of the NHK news is given a much more detailed and useful gloss by Breen's site. It all takes just a few seconds.

日銀は３１日、消費税率引き上げ後の個人消費の低迷などを背景に物価の上昇が鈍っているとして、去年４月の大規模な金融緩和の導入後初めて、追加の金融緩和に踏み切りました。

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/

 

 

日銀は３１日、消費税率引き上げ後の個人消費の低迷などを背景に物価

• 日銀 【にちぎん】 (n) (abbr) (See 日本銀行) Bank of Japan; BOJ; BoJ; ED
• ３１日 : 三十一日; ３１日 【さんじゅういちにち】 (n) (1) thirty-first day of the month; (2) thirty-one days; ED
• 消費税率 【しょうひぜいりつ】 (n) consumption tax rate; sales tax rate; VAT rate; ED
• 引き上げ : 引き上げ(P); 引き揚げ; 引上げ; 引揚げ; 引揚 【ひきあげ】 (n) (1) pulling up; drawing up; salvage; re-flotation; (2) raising; increase; upward revision; (3) repatriation; evacuation; (P); 《verb stem》 引き上げる : 引き上げる(P); 引上げる(P); 引き揚げる; 引きあげる; 引揚げる 【ひきあげる】 ; (v1,vt) (1) to pull up; to drag up; to lift up; (2) to increase; to raise (e.g. taxes); (3) to withdraw; to leave; to pull out; to retire; (4) to promote (someone to a higher position); (v1,vi) (5) to return home; (v1,vt) (6) (arch) to expedite the schedule; (P); ED
• 後の from : 後ろ(P); 後(io) 【うしろ】 (n) back; behind; rear; (P); : 後; 后(oK) 【ご】 ; (suf) (See 午後) after; : 尻(P); 臀; 後 【しり】 ; (n) (1) buttocks; behind; rump; bottom; (2) undersurface; bottom; (3) last place; end; (4) consequence; (P); 【あと】 ; (n,adj-no) (1) (See 後ずさり) behind; rear; (2) (See その後) after; later; (3) after one's death; (4) remainder; the rest; (5) descendant; successor; heir; (6) (arch) past; previous; (n-adv) (7) more (e.g. five more minutes); left; (P); 【のち】 ; (n,adj-no) (1) later; afterwards; since; (2) future; (3) after one's death; (4) (arch) descendant; (P); ED
• 個人消費 【こじんしょうひ】 (n) consumer spending; ED
• 低迷 【ていめい】 (n,vs) hanging low (over); hovering around (price level); low hanging (e.g. clouds); sluggish (e.g. economy); slump; recession; (P); ED
• 背景 【はいけい】 (n) (1) background; scenery; backdrop; setting; circumstance; context; (2) backing; support (from behind the scenes); (P); ED
• 物価 【ぶっか】 (n) prices of commodities; prices (in general); cost-of-living; (P); ED

の上昇が鈍っているとして、去年４月の大規模な金融緩和の導入後初めて

• 上昇 【じょうしょう】 (n,vs,adj-no) rising; ascending; climbing; (P); ED
• Possible inflected verb or adjective: (te-form)

  鈍る 【にぶる(P); なまる】 (v5r,vi) to become less capable; to grow dull; to become blunt; to weaken; (P); ED

• として、 (conj) as (for); for; by way of; in the role of; in the capacity of; KD
• 去年 【きょねん(P); こぞ(ok)】 (n-adv,n-t) last year; (P); ED
• ４月の from : 四月(P); ４月(P) 【しがつ】 (n-adv) April; (P); ED
• 大規模な from 大規模 【だいきぼ】 (adj-na,n) large-scale; (P); ED
• 金融緩和 【きんゆうかんわ】 (n) (See 金融逼迫) monetary easing; ED
• 導入 【どうにゅう】 (n,vs) introduction; bringing in; leading in; installation; (P); ED
• 後 【あと; ご; のち; うしろ】 (あと; ご(-suf)) (adj-no,n-adv,n) after; behind; later; rear; remainder; successor; (うしろ) (io) (n) back; behind; rear; (のち) ; (adj-no,n) afterwards; since then; in the future; SP; Name(s): 【うしろ】 (s) Ushiro 【あと】 (s) Ato 【こう】 (s) Kou 【ご】 (s) Go 【しとり】 (s) Shitori 【たかご】 (s) Takago 【のち】 (s) Nochi SrcHNA
• 初めて : 初めて(P); 始めて; 甫めて 【はじめて】 (adv,adj-no) (1) (See 始める・1) for the first time; (adv) (2) (after the -te form of a verb) only after ... is it ...; only when ... do you ...; (P); ED

、追加の金融緩和に踏み切りました。

• 追加の from 追加 【ついか】 (n,vs,adj-no) addition; supplement; append (e.g. to a file); appendix; (P); ED
• 金融緩和 【きんゆうかんわ】 (n) (See 金融逼迫) monetary easing; ED
• 踏み切り : 踏切(P); 踏切り(P); 踏み切り; 踏み切 【ふみきり】 (n) (1) railway crossing; railroad crossing; train crossing; level crossing; (2) starting line; scratch; (3) determination; (4) {sumo} stepping over the edge of the ring; (P); 《verb stem》 踏み切る 【ふみきる】 ; (v5r,vt) to make a bold start; to take a plunge; to take off; (P); ED

[flyingclimber 0]

Yup, i was thinking about writing it on my own. Maybe if i bugs me enough i'll jump into it.

 

But in the mean time your suggestions are great. I've been a huge user of Breen's site for longer then i can remember.

 

thanks for taking the time to respond so quickly and thoroughly 

[Neptunia Angulata Despecta 0]

始めましょ！

I'm a hacker learning Japanese as well, and I'm interested in furigana too.

Is there any chance of implementing a plugin or something for furigana formatting?

--JJ

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