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Baka Desu

For audio-visual snobs like myself you will be as pleased as I was to hear recently of the new “revolutionary” video codec named H.264 (yes, you would have though they could have given it a more imaginative name!). Based on the MPEG-4 standard it delivers high-definition (1920×1080, 24p) scalable video with remarkably smaller file sizes. The upshot of this being that you can get excellent quality video across whatever medium you play it on/across. It’s already been selected as the codec for the next generation of DVD’s (HD-DVD and Blu-ray) and because it’s an open standard looks set to be adopted across a broad range of broadcast services. You can watch a cool preview of the technology, which has been built into the upcoming new version of Mac OS X, here.

Had a small Japanese test yesterday which was dreadful. My mind went blank at just the wrong time and I made a total mess of it which is annoying considering that I quite enjoy the lessons. Oh well, could be worse I’m sure but that’s not going to stop me being angry about it!

Seoul, South Korea (via)

Traveling across the pacific we pass through Korea and find…

Changing China – The BBC are running a week of interesting articles about life and culture in China.

Originally from the UK, David spent over 15 years living across Japan and China. He now writes from Munich.

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4 responses

  1. Katherine avatar
    Katherine

    The key to translation is to look at the whole sentance at once not individual words. You tend to panic too much when coming across a word you don't know while it is often quite easy to guess the word by looking at it in context. The verb is your best hint as to what the sentance is about. Next time try reading the whole sentance then working on it, it makes the translation a lot easier especially when you are unlikely to meet any complex verb forms 🙂

    Reply
  2. Katherine avatar
    Katherine

    Oh, baka dewa arimasen, Nihon-ga wa gatai desu. 😀 Watashi wa keisanki o wakarimasen demo anata wa keisanki o wakarimasu. Ikasu desu 😀

    Anyway your vocab is about the same as mine 🙂 I just relax a bit more and know when to translate words. Couldn't do anything without a dictionary.

    Reply
  3. David avatar
    David

    Thanks for the advice. Translation from Japanese isn't the problem though, it's the other way round which is the problem for me!

    Reply
  4. Kitty avatar
    Kitty

    Yes that makes sense, I find the key to writing is to cheat and use the reading passage to help you through also be prepared to make stuff up that is easier to say or not bother telling the whole truth ie instead of saying you study computer science at Durham Univeristy say you are a student at Durham University since the grammar of this sentance is far easier.

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