How To: Study Japanese while playing PC (using OCR)
How To: Study Japanese while playing PC games (the secret method noone tell you)…an important title,right?
“Why this method is secret?!” probably that’s the question on your mind,and the answer is actually really simple: because ninjas uses it!
Here how it works in short: We will use an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to easily capture the Japanese text on your screen and convert it into character you can actually copy and paste around. Then we paste it on our browser,where we will translate it using an extension like “Rikaichan” or “Rikaikun”.
Thinks it’s complex?
Then watch this video I made (less than 1 minute),where I translate a sentence from the game in an instant,without the need of knowing the kanji or understanding the sentence!
Now for the required setup to use this method and in-depth explanation:
1) Download “Capture2Text”
2) Run it and from the preference set the “Start or End Capture” to some shortkey you like (in my case it is the backslash key,the one on top of TAB.) Go to OCR tab and switch the “Current OCR language” to “Japanese(NHocr)” the “Text Direction” to “Horizontal” (unless you want to use it on some manga wich has vertical text,in that case you can set it to “Auto”) and check “Enable preview box” and “remove capture box before preview”.
Also,in the bottom right corner of Windows,rightclick on the program icon and check “Show pop-up window”.
The setting is done!
Now simply launch your game with japanese text in it, press the “Start or End Capture” hotkey you set before and a selection rectangle will appear,you simply have to move it until the text is inside the rectangle and then click the “Start or End Capture” hotkey again.
A window will pop up with the recognized text in it,wich was also saved on your clipboard,so you simply have to switch to Google Translator and press “CTRL+V” to paste the japanese text from your game into the translator.
From there,you simply need to have installed on your browser “rikaichan” or “peraperakun” (for firefox) or “rikaikun”(for Chrome) and then you hover your mouse on the text you pasted to read the meaning of each word
Of course for this to work in the best way possible you have to play in windowed mode instead of fullscreen,so you can easily switch between the game and the browser.
Also,before you can select the area of the screen that should be converted into text you need to be able to see your mouse cursor,to make it appear press twice the “windows” button on your keyboard
Now you know the secret method. Up until now,you would have never knew of this,not even using google,but now your world has changed,thanks to ninjas!
IMPORTANT!!! --> The method described above utilizes a free software,but if you want to get the best resoult possible (better character recognition,less errors) and you can afford the price,then by all means install ABBYY FineReader 12 on your computer!
You can try the free trial to make a comparison against Capture2Text (I can tell you already ABBYY wins hands down), however the "Screen capture to clipboard" function (as the one of Capture2Text) it only comes with the Licensed version,it is found inside the installation folder as a separate App. and it is called "Bonus.ScreenshotReader.exe" .
To get the better resoult using "Bonus.ScreenshotReader",instead of having it saving the selection to clipboard,select the function to "Send the selection inside ABYY FineReader",this way the image will go under a waaay more accurate OCR scan
Also this method requires a decent character resolution in order for it to work properly,I tested it with "The Last Remnant" and "Phantasy Star Online 2" and it works perfectly fine,but it probably won't give good resoults with pixelated kanjis and small text,like the one you get out of lets say a DS emulator
EDIT:Little mistake in the topic title,Mod can you please change it to "
How To: Study Japanese while playing PC games (using OCR)" ? Thx
“Why this method is secret?!” probably that’s the question on your mind,and the answer is actually really simple: because ninjas uses it!
Here how it works in short: We will use an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to easily capture the Japanese text on your screen and convert it into character you can actually copy and paste around. Then we paste it on our browser,where we will translate it using an extension like “Rikaichan” or “Rikaikun”.
Thinks it’s complex?
Then watch this video I made (less than 1 minute),where I translate a sentence from the game in an instant,without the need of knowing the kanji or understanding the sentence!
Now for the required setup to use this method and in-depth explanation:
1) Download “Capture2Text”
2) Run it and from the preference set the “Start or End Capture” to some shortkey you like (in my case it is the backslash key,the one on top of TAB.) Go to OCR tab and switch the “Current OCR language” to “Japanese(NHocr)” the “Text Direction” to “Horizontal” (unless you want to use it on some manga wich has vertical text,in that case you can set it to “Auto”) and check “Enable preview box” and “remove capture box before preview”.
Also,in the bottom right corner of Windows,rightclick on the program icon and check “Show pop-up window”.
The setting is done!
Now simply launch your game with japanese text in it, press the “Start or End Capture” hotkey you set before and a selection rectangle will appear,you simply have to move it until the text is inside the rectangle and then click the “Start or End Capture” hotkey again.
A window will pop up with the recognized text in it,wich was also saved on your clipboard,so you simply have to switch to Google Translator and press “CTRL+V” to paste the japanese text from your game into the translator.
From there,you simply need to have installed on your browser “rikaichan” or “peraperakun” (for firefox) or “rikaikun”(for Chrome) and then you hover your mouse on the text you pasted to read the meaning of each word
Of course for this to work in the best way possible you have to play in windowed mode instead of fullscreen,so you can easily switch between the game and the browser.
Also,before you can select the area of the screen that should be converted into text you need to be able to see your mouse cursor,to make it appear press twice the “windows” button on your keyboard
Now you know the secret method. Up until now,you would have never knew of this,not even using google,but now your world has changed,thanks to ninjas!
IMPORTANT!!! --> The method described above utilizes a free software,but if you want to get the best resoult possible (better character recognition,less errors) and you can afford the price,then by all means install ABBYY FineReader 12 on your computer!
You can try the free trial to make a comparison against Capture2Text (I can tell you already ABBYY wins hands down), however the "Screen capture to clipboard" function (as the one of Capture2Text) it only comes with the Licensed version,it is found inside the installation folder as a separate App. and it is called "Bonus.ScreenshotReader.exe" .
To get the better resoult using "Bonus.ScreenshotReader",instead of having it saving the selection to clipboard,select the function to "Send the selection inside ABYY FineReader",this way the image will go under a waaay more accurate OCR scan
Also this method requires a decent character resolution in order for it to work properly,I tested it with "The Last Remnant" and "Phantasy Star Online 2" and it works perfectly fine,but it probably won't give good resoults with pixelated kanjis and small text,like the one you get out of lets say a DS emulator
EDIT:Little mistake in the topic title,Mod can you please change it to "
How To: Study Japanese while playing PC games (using OCR)" ? Thx
