14 October Ever since the release of Hiragana Battle, one particular question pops up in my email inbox time and time again: “When will you run a Kickstarter campaign for a game to teach Kanji?!” With that question in mind. It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce the advent of a brand new title in the Learn Japanese To Survive! Are you ready for it? Learn Japanese To Survive! Kanji Combat is launching on Kickstarter next week!

The Kickstarter campaign will give you the first look at the game in action, and will provide plenty of information about what's in store for this new game. By supporting us on Kickstarter, you'll help fund the work we are putting into this excellent new title. Plus, by becoming a backer, you'll be able to get the game at a cheaper price than retail! The Kickstarter launch is planned for: 23:00 UTC, Saturday, 21st October. We'll post a link here when it goes live – or, you can search for it once it's live! USA – West Coast: 4:00pm on Saturday, 21st October USA – East Coast: 7:00pm on Saturday, 21st October England: 12:00am on Sunday, 22nd October Australia: 10:00am on Sunday, 22nd October We hope to see you all on Kickstarter! About This Game Learn Japanese To Survive!

Hiragana Battle is an educational game that is the ideal introductory course to the Japanese language! You’re reading this page now because you have more than a passing interest in learning Japanese. Maybe you’ve tried learning it before, but never had any luck?

Interview: The SegaGaGa Translation Project. For those of you that are old-school Sega Junkies (especially fans of the Dreamcast), you may have heard of Sega’s. The Starfish Language trope as used in popular culture. Oh, hey, the aliens wish to communicate with us. They're speaking into the communication apparatus.

That’s completely normal, so don’t worry! Learning a language can be daunting.

And with a language like Japanese, full of strange and wonderful written characters, you might not even know where to start. You need a learning tool that’s going to keep you interested, challenge you at the right pace, and most importantly, keep you coming back for more. That’s why Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle was made!

This isn’t just educational software – this is a full-blown RPG specifically designed to keep you engaged. By playing along, you’re going to be introduced to the Japanese language like never before. Learn how to read and write Japanese characters (Hiragana) at a steady pace. There’s a new set of characters to learn each chapter, and your revision takes place on the battlefield! If your knowledge is up to scratch, you’ll claim victory in exciting strategic battles. If you’re falling behind, you have the opportunity to revisit specific chapters and brush up on your knowledge. As a bonus, you’ll also learn common Japanese words and phrases and important grammar points!

Ucinet Cracker. What is Hiragana? Hiragana is the basic writing system used in Japanese. Japanese actually combines 3 different sets of characters to form written works – Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. This game focuses solely on Hiragana, the foundation. By learning Hiragana, you can write and pronounce nearly any Japanese word. Features: • An exciting story based on the concept of learning Japanese.

As the characters in the story learn Hiragana, you learn along with them! • Learn every single Hiragana character, with detailed instructions on how to read and write each character. • Visual animations displaying how to write each character. • Audio speech examples demonstrate how to pronounce each character. • Exciting gameplay with familiar RPG elements – collect items, complete quests, engage in battles! • Earn experience points and level up your characters. • Revise completed lessons to brush up on your knowledge.

• In-game quizzes to test what you’re learning.

— comic strip, (part 8) Also known as a 'Universal Translator', this is a special kind of that automatically translates communication from the speaker's language into the listener's, thus removing those pesky from between people of different countries, times, species or planets. It is commonly used to the appearance of, by implying that the aliens are actually speaking in their native tongue and their words are being automatically translated for the (in-universe) characters' benefit. This is distinct from a, where the aliens appear to be speaking English solely for the audience's benefit. We must, of course, assume that said microbes work either by imparting the ability to speak a common language (in which case, the characters are using, but the audience is really experiencing the ) or that the microbes substantially alter the listener's perceptions, as otherwise, they would appear to be dubbed over like in a foreign film rather than merely speaking English. Given how closely lip movements will appear to match the words for a film which is dubbed very well, it is not inconceivable that a translation done by super-advanced science might be so good as to make the discontinuity between lip movements and voice difficult to notice.

Also don't forget that your brain lies to you all the time - you are seeing what you are expecting to see, so when you aren't really concentrating on watching the lips moving, you probably won't notice, especially if the microbes suppressed your visual recognition in that way. There is a bit of at work here, since it would be ridiculously hard from a production standpoint to film English-speaking actors and have them move their lips in a fake language, just to dub the same actors' voices in English at the end anyway. This trope not only predates television, it. One example is The Gift of Tongues given to the Apostles at Pentecost in. After the Holy Spirit comes to them, they address a large crowd drawn from many different nations, and everybody hears them speaking his own language. The members of the crowd are astonished that the people doing this are all Gallileans (normally assumed to be uneducated rustics).

Almost all stories will postulate that Translator Microbes are part of the magical nature of this other world. No justification is required or expected, although it's often good to have some kind of to point out that it's not 'realistic'. A well-done page on this is. Have a tendency to break down when faced with, and may sometimes give up when faced with a. It is rare for them to state that.

Kd Player 320x240 Download here. See also and. See also, when a character can do this by training or super power. • has a pocket dougu (gadget) called 'Hon'yaku-Konnyaku' (translation konjac). This piece of jelly allows one to understand and speak any known language after eating it. The duration is unknown. Doraemon also has a variety of flavors of konjac such as miso. • In, the Halkeginian language is magically translated into Japanese and vice-versa for the benefit of Saito and his interlocuters, an effect he apparently received as part of his summoning.

The limitations of this form of translation became apparent in later volumes when Saito tried to learn the Halkeginian script and realised that he was reading the words as if they were translated idiomatically, which is not a problem if he just want to understand the overall meaning of the text but becomes a problem if he wanted to understand it literally. • In the anime, Saito can't understand anything anyone is saying just after he is summoned to be Louise's familiar. Bothered by his nonstop babbling, Louise casts a silence spell on him. Instead, it magically translates everything for him. • has Miaka, a Japanese teenager, in the midst of people in a book written in Chinese and a world reminiscent of Ancient China. Then again, who ever said that the world in the book was Ancient China itself?

•: She's actually inside the Japanese translation of a Chinese book. • In, Chamber, the AI of the main character's mecha, can translate a newly encountered language, but it needs sample to analyze.

The more contact it has with the language, the more fluent it becomes. • The 'Gift of Languages' is a built-in perk of being reincarnated as a devil in.

Issei notes that he's had to start fudging his English classes so the teacher doesn't ask questions. It doesn't extend to written words, though, as a couple of native English speakers comment they're still studying literacy despite being 'fluent' when speaking. • has the Rare Rare Drops, candies that help Earth people understand Jewel Land's language. • Yuuri of cannot understand a word anyone is saying to him in the magical world at first, until he gets zapped with language magic () and then he can understand everyone perfectly. • Mentioned in the Bonus Pages in Vol.

Able to speak the language in the? It's thanks to interpretation magic. It's very elemental magic. • A similar thing happens in the manga.

The Torumekians & Eftal peoples speak whatever the series has been translated into, whereas the Doroks speak a strange language written in apparently made-up characters. Very few characters are bilingual & rely on the telepathic powers of Psykers like Nausicaa or Chikuku to translate & are at a great loss without them. • This also happens in, however, as a bit of a, it doesn't happen right away. Joe, Reni, and Mike aren't given theirs until a couple or so episodes later. •: • In:, the Zentradi are shown to be talking their own language for about half the movie.

Then after capturing our heroes, the Zentradi archivist Exedor turns on a universal translator. Suddenly the Zentradi are speaking English (conveniently ). • In, the V-Type infection is caused by literal, that allows the infected party to tap into the Vajra fold communication network/. The downside of this however is that the host's health deteriorates since the bacteria infects the brain, that is unless, they were infected before birth wherein the bacteria will instead live in the stomach/lower intestine with no ill effects to the host whatsoever. • This is Mokona's special power in. Since the cast themselves are from 3 different worlds, if they get separated from him, they can't even understand each other.

• The Hinman in act as as a secondary function (their primary giving the owner kick ass martial art skills). • The SEAUn terrorists in talk to their Japanese contact using his translation program on his wrist terminal in the intro. When Akane arrives in SEAUn, she initially talks to Colonel Nicholas Wong in English before using a similar translation program to converse in Japanese. Averted with the cyborg mercenary leader; when talking to Kougami, he immediately switches from English to Japanese with no aid. He is, so it's likely he knows several languages as well. • Robonyan in the non-Asian dubs of can speak at any language. • In DC comics (mainly ) alien characters either spoke a common language called Interlac, or used 'telepathic earplugs' to understand each other.

• Former member Manitou Raven, a, would summon spider spirits called a word-weavers which he would in order to communicate with the Leaguers. For obvious reasons, Dawn made efforts to learn English on her own.

• In the Snarfquest comic strip, a goofy-looking critter called a gaggaleech note really a very scary 'Darkshade Death Leech', but it keeps this secret for obvious reasons gains the ability to communicate with everything due to a ring-granted Wish. It uses this power to on the other characters, but is forced to change its diet from blood to fruit juice note and is extremely annoyed to find that even apples beg for mercy while being drained of their vital fluid because 'everything' includes prey. • Spider Jerusalem was injected with a literal translator microbe in the Cyberpunk series. • In, the Kalen inject Atavar with a.thing. To realign his language neural centre, allowing him to speak their language. • One of the many functions of power rings in. • In the graphic novel Green Lantern: Secret Origins and possibly in other comics, Hal curses and swears and the ring goes 'unable to translate'.

• Katma Tui ran into a translation problem in the story 'In Blackest Night' when attempting to recruit Rot Lop Fan, an alien whose species evolved without sight, into the Green Lantern Corps. Their language had no words pertaining to the concepts of sight, light or color, so her ring's translation feature couldn't interpret even the phrase 'Green Lantern' into his language. She ends up loosely translating the Corps' name as the F-Sharp Bell Corps (F♯ is the recruit's favorite pitch), and his refers to sounds and tones in place of light and colour.

• Also, though they're supposedly programmed with every language in the Universe, there are exceptions, such as the Vegan languages (the Guardians have no jurisdiction in that system) and the language of the Indigo Tribe. • Similar to the Green Lanterns, the Corps power set includes universal translation.

• During the first clash between and, it was discovered that the Mad Titan's hordes were using a special machine that allowed anyone near it to perceive any words in their native tongue. For instance, saw the alien writing on the ship in English, while Mantis saw it in Vietnamese. Once the Avengers shut off he device, Thanos' lackeys promptly killed one another since they could no longer understand what anyone was saying. • In the books, Doug 'Cypher' Ramsey has the mutant ability to translate languages, both human and computer. • It's implied that the kids' costumes in have universal translators built in. •: • In the original story, Supergirl's parents own a device able to decipher alien languages. Kara and her mother use it to learn English.

• When Supergirl first arrives on Earth in the, she can only understand Kryptonian, so only and a girl named Siobhan Smythe can communicate with her. Siobhan can, through magic, become fluent in any language after hearing a few words. She demonstrates with both Kryptonian and birdsong. Later, Supergirl, Black Banshee, and Siobhan's brother are able to understand each other in Black Banshee's mindscape, but not in the real world. • In Supergirl gets a Red Lantern Ring which is -literally- an universal translator.

Although Kara wondered if her ring's translator was broken when the Diasporan leader called her 'their newest Champion'. • in the Golden Age story 'Gookum!' , when Glarf Nerfnick, Martian, upon landing on Earth, begins to speak to reporters who wonder if he speaks English. •: Barbarella understands the Sogoites' language thanks to the multi-purpose bracelet on her left wrist translating it for her. • In, the Psychlos have a device that can teach humans their language, which they only use on one human because they didn't consider the 'man-animals' intelligent enough to teach, despite all contrary evidence. • The old Disney film has its leading character wear a collar that translates the wearer's thoughts into people's heads. • Star Trek parody has some sort of translators.

They appear to work for the Thermians (the friendly aliens) in a similar way to Klingons, with exclamations in their alien language often remaining untranslated. Oddly, the translators are devices used by the Thermians to make themselves understood, yet the antagonist aliens (an unnamed reptilian species) also appear to speak English despite never having even heard of humans before.

Being a comedy, it probably shouldn't be expected to make too much sense. • The translators are clearly integrated with the Thermian ships(on which all of the main characters' dealing with Sarris and his species take place). They're the ones translating for them, just as they do with the newly-discovered species in the mining colony during the 'Gorignak' sequence. • In There is a when Peter Quill is being put into the system. The screen the prison guards are looking at notes that Peter's implanted helmet has a translation circuit in it. Other than Groot's language, it seems to work rather well. Presumably is in place for all scenes that Peter is not present.

• The Inhabited Island features this; when Maxim lands on planet Saraksh and meets a native, he puts a little 'snake' in his ear, that allows him to understand and speak the Sarakshian language. • In the original Strugatskies novel, Maxim actually studied Sarakshian language for months until he was able to speak and understand a bit.

The film, reasonably, could not be made fully in fictional language with subtittles, especially since the book provides very few examples of Sarakshian. • Oddly enough, many Maxim's awkward lines from when he knew Sarakshian bad are still there, despite now we presume he knows the language already. • In the movie, one of the first things that happens to the hero once he arrives at the Starfighter base is a small disk attached to his lapel that translates brain waves so he hears perfect English, even though that's not what's actually being spoken. The movie then switches to in a later scene.

•: A scientist devises a computer-powered machine to aide communication with the Martians. How well it functions is a point of ambiguity throughout the film - it seems to translate the Martian Emperor's cryptic, metaphor-filled First Contact message fairly well, but the Martians themselves seem oddly alarmed by harsh-sounding translated parts of the humans' welcome message. The fact that the Martians may also be cruel liars is also a factor, as they shout continue shouting comments translated as 'We come in peace!'

While atomising people. The device itself is small enough to be carried around by hand, but takes a second to broadcast whatever the user says in the translated language. • mentions a translator, along with the fact human thought is considered a disease by some aliens. • Appropriately for a sci-fi homage/parody, Simon Pegg thinks this is how Paul is speaking English in. Uhura: We art thy freighter. Six weeks out of.

We art delivering food. Supplies to Rura Penthe. • The novelization reveals that the border guards actually let the Enterprise through out of pity, believing that the Ursva's captain was simply a particularly inept smuggler. He also decides to give them a little message in smuggler's code, so the 'smugglers' will know that he wasn't fooled one bit, thus explaining the nonsensical 'joke' he tells as a signoff. That whole scene makes so much more sense in the novelization.

• Nichelle Nichols objected to the above version of the scene, feeling that Uhura, being a communications officer would be fluent in many different languages. However, her request to change the scene was turned down.

This was likely the reason why 's Uhura in the remake had no problem talking with the Klingons without any universal translators, despite claiming to be 'rusty'. Then again, she hasn't been out of the Academy for very long, so the knowledge is probably still fresh in her mind. • The live action film gives the first attempt in the series why the robots are capable of speaking English just fine, their minds access the internet and are able to assimilate personality quirks appropriate to them, such as Jazz talking and acting like a hip black guy (itself based on the G1 character, voiced by renowned black musician Scatman Crothers), and 'Bee implicitly being a fan. Both Megatron and Frenzy speak in both English and mumble in what seems to be a Cybertronian language. • Ponter in, a Neaderthal from an where Neanderthals and not Homo Sapiens survived, uses his implant to communicate with people from a universe like our where English is spoken and homo sapiens survived.

This is especially important as Neanderthals cannot produce the long-e sound, making a lot of Homo Sapiens words unpronounceable naturally by them. • In the, a pair of magical glasses that grant this power is considered one of the most dangerous objects in the world, on the basis that knowledge is power. • More specifically, these glasses give the ability to read the Forgotten Language. The Incarna, who wrote in this language, had access to magic and technology several orders of magnitude beyond that of the heroes or villians, but Alcatraz Smedry The First 'broke' their language, rendering it utterly incomprehensible to anything short of the Translator's Lenses. • uses the 'Babel Fish', though in this case the ridiculous nature of the translation device (inserted in the ear) probably means its use is satirical — like most things in H2G2. The fish itself is named after the biblical myth.

The babel fish, as it is known, subsists entirely on sound waves. A side effect is that these sound waves are converted into brain waves, which are excreted by the fish into the host's brain.. (According to Oolon Colluphid, anyway.

Some people think it's all a load of dingo's kidneys.) • In, a demon trying to tempt Harry into losing his soul provides perfect two-way translation (of various languages including Latin and ancient Etruscan) as one of several favors it does for Harry. He knows he shouldn't keep relying on it, but. • In the later Discworld novels, as we see in, when Commander Vimes is in total darkness, a powerful demon called the Summoning Dark by dwarves, allows him to hear and speak perfectly to any creature within the darkness, as well as having perfect night vision. • begins with - Uncle Press and a Denduron native communicate while understanding each other perfectly. Once Bobby's Traveller nature kicks in, he gains the ability to read and understand the languages of all the other Territories. Presumably, it applies to acolytes too, since Mark and Courtney get messages from Spader, Aja and others that are somehow in English. Possibly they are translated by the rings used to send the messages between territories, given that when acolytes use them they are addressed to a specific person, not a territory in general.

For some reason though, some languages seem like they must be the same as English. For example, in 'The Pilgrims of Rayne,' some people think a sign says 'Rubity' when really it was worn down and originally said Rubic City.

Since proper nouns presumably have no translation, and Rubic City is a combination of a proper noun and a common, translatable noun, this would only make sense in English. • In, all Andalites in the military have translator chips implanted into their brains that can translate any language after a brief exposure to it. In addition, their 'thought speak' can be understood by any sentient being, because it communicates concepts in addition to specific words. • The ridiculously convenient nature of thought-speak is eventually by a backstory novel where we learn the Ellimist took his extremely high-tech 'communications system' with him when he took the form of a prehistoric Andalite; presumably the genes or literal or whatever he was using got passed on to his descendants. • In, the time travellers had earpieces that translated for them. The problem was that only one of them actually knew how to talk in period and he was pretty shaky at it (he was a history buff/archaeologist) so for the most part they could understand (reasonably, the translators weren't perfect) but not speak without sounding crazy.

• In the series, the majority of the translation is provided by toots (computers implanted in the user's brain), but the toot still needs to have something with one or two degrees of relation to the language in use before it can start trying to translate. Things aren't smooth - they find out in March To the Stars that the original language sample they've been working from all along has been strategically edited to make all mentions of the locals' new religious habits incredibly euphemistic. Since the locals are now ritualistic cannibals and they're asking for Prince Roger's girlfriend as a sacrifice, Prince Roger is, understandably, Not Pleased to find this out. It doesn't end well for the locals. Additionally, since the native Mardukans lack toots entirely, they have to learn all languages and dialects the hard way. • In the universe, everyone wears (or has implanted) a piece of micro-technology which provides real-time translation of speech, though not necessarily of written language.

It’s not perfect, however. Earther translators seem to render speech as somewhat stilted, while Taysan translators are more effective. • The wizards in the series can use the to make themselves understood by all beings (non-wizard listeners usually perceive it as being in their native tongue) and can understand every language. It's so effective that wizards can all.

At one point they speak to the air molecules and make it remember when it was solid like it was a billion years ago, so they can walk on it. And there's a rather hilarious involving Kit's DVD player and remote control. • In Gregory Frost's novel Shadowbridge, the world is filled with incredibly long bridges, divided into spans. Each span has its own language, but visitors will magically find themselves fluent in it a few minutes after entering. • The Yuuzhan Vong from the had a Translator Worm as part of their. The tizowyrms, small worms who could be inserted in the ear to understand foreign languages. Somehow, it also allows them to speak unaccented Basic.

• In the series by James White, translator packs are Walkman-sized devices that must be body-worn (typically on a lanyard around whatever anatomical landmark corresponds to the neck), only work for known languages, and can't translate vocal inflections, nonverbal communication, context cues or (amusingly) foul language. They're dumb terminals running the hospital mainframe's translation program, which isn't a whole lot better than a modern Web translator - and when the mainframe crashes, as in the Etlan 'police action' (read: minor war) of Star Surgeon, chaos results.

• John DeChancie's is wrapped in a translator spell to serve its numerous interdimensional 'guests'. • The novels mention an Unrestricted Spell that performs this task; presumably, everyone is just using that all the time. • In the book series, the aliens have a universal translator that is implanted into the brain.

Every species speaks its native language, and an individual hears the alien language with their ears, but the translator makes them aware of what it means. This implant is also capable of translating non-verbal communication as well, as some of the species don't have vocal cords. This trope is also applied directly, in that the aliens who are sent to Earth as teachers have a second implant that causes them to speak English. • series by Olga Larionova are, so protagonists learned language of star-traveling via memory-writing device and used it normally in first book, but later (when frantic planet-hopping started) team magical translators. Those worked with any sentient creature using any form of spoken language, but frequently translated speech as strange or broken dialect and sometimes (on more unusual subject) as incomprehensibly weird puzzle, forcing user to ask partner in conversation to explain the same in other words and then try to put it all together.

The hero is one of the few people on Earth who can do magic (that's why he met the dragons). Despite his ever-increasing talents, when he finds he can talk to dogs (a dog), his other non-human friends just hear barking. Nobody converts to vegetarianism on the spot. • It would be pretty strange to convert to vegetarianism on a dog's say-so. • Many novels had the communication pins have translator devices., which predates combadges (being based on TOS), instead states the translator to be a subcutaneous implant.

• In, Great-Uncle Perceval's grey powder provides the users with the ability to communicate fluently with. • Done in ' novels, although in that computer technology has to the point where simultaneous voice translation is a standard feature of the 'Net. There are cases where this fails due to linguistic nuances or a character speaking in a language that the translation software doesn't recognize. • disliked this trope and tried not to use it; when she resorted to it in Hunters of the Red Moon, the translator sometimes wouldn't convey cultural nuances or figures of speech. • Neal Asher's novels include two different implants that serve this function: Augs (the standard brain implants wore by everyone) provided instantaneous translation of recognized languages, while the more advanced Gridlinks actually downloaded the language directly into the user's head, essentially making them native speakers of it. • In the 3rd book of Piers Anthony's novels, the main character has the ability to make inanimate objects speak. He uses this ability to make friends with a 8-foot tall giant spider, by telling a piece of spider's web to translate the spider's chittering for him.

Makes perfect sense. • In the Dragonfall 5 sci-fi juveniles by Brian Earnshaw, there were twin alien animals that carried out this function. Played for laughs when they have a scientist traveling on the ship; he gets rather annoyed when they kept translating his, e.g. As 'He means no.' • The Brain Pals in.