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Japan Pins Tourism Hopes on PDA 239

Posted by samzenpus from the great-idea dept.
Sammy at Palm Addict writes "According to Australia News.com, Japan will start lending PDA's to foreign visitors to help tourists get to grips with the country. The aim is to make Japan more attractive to foreign tourists, who are often put off by the country's language barrier. The PDA's will be loaded with travel information and translation services as part of a tourism promotion scheme. "Japan's tourism authority will lend the PDAs containing Chinese, Korean and English software, to selected tourists who land at Narita Airport near Tokyo from February through March to test the response" Japan's transport ministry said."
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Japan Pins Tourism Hopes on PDA More

Japan Pins Tourism Hopes on PDA

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  • What's wrong with just puting up English signs? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow, a high-tech solution to a low-tech problem. Tourist areas all over the world manage this without PDAs. By having signs in a second language, using the latin alphabet. And where restaurants have cards in multiple languages.

    What a waste of electrons.
    • I agree. Too many problems are being solved with technology as the answer, when simpler means could be used.

      Simply having signs in English doesn't help visitors who speak other tongues, but multi-lingual signs would help. Many visitors may even be able to pick up easy words from signs in English rather than trying to translate Japanese characters. I for one am used to seeing road signs in English/French so going to Quebec, I can pick out what the French signs translate to.
      • Many visitors may even be able to pick up easy words from signs in English rather than trying to translate Japanese characters.

        They already have [u-tokyo.ac.jp] signs [rocketbaby.net] in English [links.net] in many places. This is nothing new.

        The problem is this is mostly in the touristy areas. Get off the beaten path and everything's Japanese only, and that's never going to change. You're not going to convince the local municipality of Ryu-Gasaki in Ibaraki prefecture to change all of its signs for the three tourists they get per year, for exa
    • Tourist areas all over the world manage this without PDAs. By having signs in a second language, using the latin alphabet.

      It's a lot easier to give out a few hundred, or even thousand, PDAs than trying to get English signs up in 100 million shops (not to mention taxis, buses, trains, ferries). Even in recently-British Hong Kong, most small restaurants don't have any English signs or menus, for instance.

      • "It's a lot easier to give out a few hundred, or even thousand, PDAs than trying to get English signs up in 100 million shops (not to mention taxis, buses, trains, ferries). Even in recently-British Hong Kong, most small restaurants don't have any English signs or menus, for instance. "

        In Japan, the restaurants are not the problem. Even the smallest restaurants in Japan have clearly labeled prices and plastic life-like models of the food they serve.

        The real problem in Japan is street addresses and subw

    • a high-tech solution to a low-tech problem.

      Why is a high tech solution to a low tech problem a bad idea? Why is the language barrier a "low tech" problem anyway?

      By having signs in a second language

      And what should the second language be on those signs? English might be a reasonable 2nd language I suppose - I'm really not sure about the languages read by visitors to Japan, but what about the 3rd language to go on the signs. How many languages need to go on the signs to cover 2/3 of tourists or 3/4 o

    • Re:What's wrong with just puting up English signs? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:41AM (#11218111) Homepage
      Tourist areas all over the world manage this without PDAs.

      And when you don't want to be confined to the tourist traps?

      English is widespread, but not _that_ widespread. Many visitors to Japan aren't Westerners, but Chinese or Korean. That second language should probably be Mandarin, which likely wouldn't help most slashdotters much. A restaurant not close to the usual tourist haunts may get foreign customers a few times a year at most; that would be a lot of work keeping the menus up to date in three languages just for those few occasions.

      And since English knowledge in general is not up to the standard where you are confident to write a legible menu, who is going to do that translation work to begin with?

      I think this is a pretty good idea. It may give visitors the confidence needed to go off the beaten tourist path a bit and try some really different experiences. There's a lot more to Japan than temples and expensive fish restaurants.

      Also note that while they'll be passing them out freely during the pilot, nothing precludes the use of a deposit system, or even rental, if the trials pan out.
      • Well, the thing about the average Chinese tourist is they can already read most of the signs at a survival level because a huge chunk of the Japanese writing system was stolen from China. (It's sort of like an American going to England. It's close enough to figure out most things, but you'll still trip over others.)

        • Re:Chinese tourists (Score:2, Informative)

          by JanneM ( 7445 )
          From the chinese I know here, this is only partly true, and depends a lot on the style of writing used.

          It is true that Kanji was taken from the Chinese from the beginning. Also, a large corpus of words written onloy using Kanji have been borrowed; they tend to be abstract terms or high-status words, while the older, indigenuous words are more familiar (think "ascertain" versus "make sure").

          However, the actual meaning of the Kanji have tended to shift or extend somewhat differently, and so have the borrowe

        • Well, the thing about the average Chinese tourist is they can already read most of the signs at a survival level because a huge chunk of the Japanese writing system was stolen from China.

          This is much more true the other way around. Japanese visitors to China can puzzle their way around by looking for familiar characters, but Japanese has other alphabets that have no relation to Chinese.

          Put another way (and quite roughly), Chinese writing is a subset of Japanese writing.

    • Wow, a high-tech solution to a low-tech problem.

      Yeah but, see, the low-tech solution has been available for centuries, it hasn't happened, and there's no sign that it will within our lifetime. So we might as well give the high-tech folks a chance. Maybe they (we ;-) can solve some problems that could have been solved in a simpler manner but weren't.

      Here in the US, it's easy to get a feel for why you won't see English signs in Japan outside the few tourist areas any time soon. Just ask people what they t
      • Wow, a high-tech solution to a low-tech problem. Tourist areas all over the world manage this without PDAs. By having signs in a second language, using the latin alphabet. And where restaurants have cards in multiple languages.

        What a waste of electrons.

      This statement is amazingly arrogant. It makes sense in high traffic areas to have signs in multiple languages - airports for example. But get out of the big city and there is no good reason to go to the extra expense of additional languages. I've b

  • I'll be over there to visit my cousin possibly in this time frame. Is there any way I can opt in?

  • Why a PDA? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jmcmunn ( 307798 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:09AM (#11217959)

    Why does it have to be a PDA? I mean a magazine or pamphlet would seemingly be just as useful to most people (and much cheaper). Put some common translations that tourists might need in a little book, and throw in a good map and some sightseeing information, and you're all set. Now granted, the magazine will not have GPS capability or be able to talk to me or whatever...but still it is only .01% as expensive afterall. And no one cares if I walk off with a magazine.

    On another note, PDA's are still pretty touchy most times. They do lock up occasionally, and someone who has never used it could get confused. The batteries die, the screens get scratched up, the stylus gets lost...all of which make it inconvenient to loan out to someone visiting the country.

    • Re:Why a PDA? (Score:2, Informative)

      by AthenianGadfly ( 798721 )
      According to another article (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1273 322.htm [abc.net.au]), the PDAs won't just have maps and common phrases, but will also have voice translation (in the english models), as well as free unlimited Internet access and free phone calls within Japan. These seem to me to be substantive services beyond just a flashy way to deliver basic, predefined information.
    • You are aware that the Japanese language has over 2000 kanji which you are expected to read if you are a japanese citizen? Add that to the problem that outside the large tourist areas english skills are pretty poor (compared to what you may be used to in eg Europe) and you may have serious problems understanding the menu in a restaurant.

      When I was there I used an electronic dictionary quite a bit (though I have studied Japanese, if you haven't one of those is pretty useless). I think a simple PDA could hel

      • Re:Why a PDA? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Epistax ( 544591 ) <(epistax) (at) (gmail.com)> on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:51AM (#11218167) Journal
        You are aware that the Japanese language has over 2000 kanji which you are expected to read if you are a japanese citizen?

        Psh, what FUD. You only need to know 1900 to get a jist of the newspaper.
      • If you know a couple of hundred you can already grasp the meaning of many things. I only know about 40 of 'em I already recognize some shop labels and the like. Most Japanese people know about 2000, but there are loads more. I heard 3500+, but Chinese, which Kanji was derived from, has 7000+. Heck, when you learn Kanji, you can even read Chinese, similar as they are.

        The funny thing about Kanji is you can learn to read/write it without knowing any Japanese.

        • Re:Why a PDA? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Hast ( 24833 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @09:38AM (#11218479)
          I knew about 350 kanji when I was i Japan this past summer. I still couldn't read what was in a piece of sushi when I was standing in the local kombini (unless there was furigana on it as well). I could of course ask the people in the store but since I didn't really care I just learned some that I liked.

          And if you learn kanji in Japan you are expected to know all jyoujou-kanji (1946 IIRC) plus about 500 more that are "common knowledge". But most people know a few more in their work field.

          Naturally just because you "know" a kanji doesn't mean you can read or understand a composite that it is included in. Learning the kanji shape and basic meaning is just the first, easy, part. ;-)
    • On another note, PDA's are still pretty touchy most times. They do lock up occasionally, and someone who has never used it could get confused.

      Really? I can't remember the last time my Palm crashed on me. You may be right regarding CE (or PocketPC?) devices, I really don't know.

      I think GPS is going to be necessary. The Japanese number their buildings in the order they are built, not by where they are located relative to some location.

  • This is a good idea BUT (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:14AM (#11217982)
    having traveled in Japan, I've found the double sided maps adequate for getting around. They are printed with Japanese on one side and another language, say English on the other. It's a simple matter of pattern recognition to get around and after a while one learns to read the Japanese signs at the transport stops. The PDA will make this a little easier, but a paper map is much more robust. A phrase book is also very helpful and incorporation into the PDA will be handy.
  • Now I just need the airfare, hotel and spending money....

    Oh yeah, that was my only barrier anyways.

    Actually given enough money the countries I want to visit [in order] would be

    - New Zealand, meet some peeps
    - Australia, box a roo
    - Germany, ... no reason
    - England, meet some peeps
    - Japan, get some cheap DVD players

    Maybe also add Switzerland there for the good chocolate and hang out at EPFL. ;-)
    • Japan, get some cheap DVD players

      So you would spend $1000(at least) to go and by a $40 DVD player that you can find at Walmart?

    • Re:Sold (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Zorilla ( 791636 )
      - Japan, get some cheap DVD players

      Not sure you'd find decent prices for electronics in Japan. I think I saw a DVD player somewhere around $200-300, a 25" CRT HD set for about $1800, and crappy 17" LCD monitors with really thick bezels for around $500. No, thanks.
    • Germany, ... no reason

      Bier, bratwurst, spass, kultur, ...

  • Nice.

    Couldn't be done with paper - too much everything.

    Don't think it will work well though due to the usual human I/O problem.

    If it did speech recognition -> text -> english and back again,

    or text translation using a mini handheld scanner with OCR it might be amazing, but for the moment it's probably just a quicker dictionary.

    All the japanese students I know have electronic dictionaries. `Flicking through pages?`

  • katakana (Score:4, Informative)

    by augnober ( 836111 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:32AM (#11218054)
    A guide to katakana (Japanese phonetic characters for foreign words) would be nice.. Or perhaps a little education campaign about it.

    Many of the most important signs are written in katakana, which in essence means they are written in English. There are only 46-or-so basic characters to learn, which you can get a decent handle on by the time you step off the plane. This is more than enough to find hotels (hoteru), order food and drinks off most menus, find restaurants (resutoran), etc.

    I knew katakana in Japan and only a few Japanese words. I'm not kidding about how handy it was.
  • What type of PDA will this be? Something we're used to like a Pocket PC or Palm, or do they have their own breed of PDAs in Japan? The latter seems the most likely to me.

    They should have included 2 more sentences in the story, and that would have been the entire content of this article. Rather short on details.

    Now that Pocket PC has taken over the PDA market and has surpassed Palm in sales will Slashdot change its PDA icon? Of course we already know the answer to that one. :)

    Dan East
    • These are Pocket PC with a celluar voice/data card installed.
    • The tourists will have to reset every few hours just. If they use a Palm, then they should just rewire the power button to the reset. If tourists have to fumble with paper clips to reset the damn unstable hunks of junk, then the PDAs will just end up cluttering the sidewalks as they're thrown at high speed by frustrated tourists, probably through the windows of the tourism board.
      • Funny how I've yet to cause my Zire to crash. As long as you avoid the urge to put as much junk sharewarez on your PDA, you'll be fine. It all crap anyways. If you stick to Palm apps and open source proggies you'll be fine.
        • As long as you avoid the urge to put as much junk sharewarez on your PDA

          Aside from what came with the Palm I'm running the following:

          * Most recent patch of Documents to Go that came with the Palm.

          * Plucker.

          * zLauncher.

          The problems predate the install of Plucker and zLauncher, continue if I uninstall all three programs, and continue even after a hard reset and complete memory wipe. I have to do soft resets on every hotsync, even the first one after a hard reset and on a fresh install of Palm Desktop w

  • Nice (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )
    That's a nice thing. When we went to Japan last year, we gathered lots of information beforehand, and had a few notices with us all the time. Having that in a PDA is certainly useful.

    However, getting around Tokyo is fairly easy, and the japanese are extremely friendly and helpful. If you can bridge the language barrier, you're never on your own. Why, at one point all we had to do to have someone ask us if we needed help, walk us to the train and see to it that we got off at the right station, was look dumb

  • Good idea (Score:3, Funny)

    by frozenray ( 308282 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:37AM (#11218089)
    to make Japan more attractive to foreign tourists, who are often put off by the country's language barrier
    I'm extremely wary of traveling to any country where you can never be sure if the sign on the door you're about to open says

    RESTAURANT
    or:
    ENTER HERE FOR EXPRESS VASECTOMY SERVICE

    [Credit: Dave Barry [langston.com], "Dave Barry Does Japan"]
  • A PDA with a camera. You take a picture of a sign, it OCRs it and reads you the sign in whatever language you speak.

    That'd be cool.
    • A PDA with a camera. You take a picture of a sign, it OCRs it and reads you the sign in whatever language you speak.

      The camera would help a lot. I rented a camera phone and emailed pictures to my friend who translated it for me. Of course it depended on my friend be available, so the OCR and translation would be cool.

  • They did the same thing last year (Score:5, Informative)

    by Chang ( 2714 ) * on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:44AM (#11218127)
    They ran a similar pilot during the same period last year.

    From the looks of the website - the devices haven't really changed much.

    http://www.narita-airport.jp/e-navi/ [narita-airport.jp]

    They are, however very fun toys even if nothing has changed. I'm planning to be in Japan again in a few months and if they have any available I'll definitely try them out.

  • The problem isn't language it is price (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Raindeer ( 104129 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:46AM (#11218137) Homepage Journal
    I would love to go to Japan, but simple calculations put a 20 day trip there beyond my financial limits and there are still alot of cheaper places in the world I want and financially can see. Just to give you a quote of the Lonely Planet.

    Japan is probably the most expensive country in the world for travel
    • Japan is probably the most expensive country in the world for travel

      Visit England and Iceland first if you want to see expensive.

      • From what I know of traveling to England first hand and trying to travel to Japan, Japan costs more.
        • and from what I know of having lived in both for more than four years each within the last decade, you're wrong.

          I'm comparing London to Tokyo, by the way. I'm sure you can get good value on the Northern English Inland Riviera somewhere and make good headway by sticking to Tesco Value items, but for real life that's not really the case.

      • What I know having moved from London to Tokyo is that I pay less on rent, less on travel and less when eating out. I pay more for groceries, drinks and general consumables.

        There are also no scale savings, the cost of a 24 can crate of beer is almost exactly 1 can x 24. I make no real saving by shopping once a week as opposed to daily.

        Entertainment costs a lot more and paying $30 for an album is starting to appear cheap, in less than 9 hours I am flying back to England to visit family I expect my "value ga
        • More for groceries? I guess objectively that's maybe true, but in Japan I was glad for the privilige, where the food is nearly uniformly good. M&S or Tesco, on the other hand, appear to base their business models on passing off livestock feed quality shite in packages designed by highly paid designers who have worked to make it look like you're getting more than you actually are and then they spend a lot of money on MBAs who come up with ideas like "let's call it our 'finest' range and charge double!".
    • I think this was true about 10 years ago, but it isn't true now. I was there for about 2 weeks (mostly Tokyo and Kyoto) and spent way less money than I expected to. You can eat very well in Japan for far less than you can in Los Angeles (where I live now). I never stayed in a hotel that cost more than 10,000 (about 100 $USD) and I sometimes got whatever hotel I could find at the last minute. I stayed in mostly business hotels and one ryokan; no capsules for me; you don't have to sacrifice some level of
  • I'll be visiting Japan in February and would Love to be the /.'er that sent a report back on these PDA's, yet I will not be flying into Tokyo. Instead I'll be in Nagoya.

  • *Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rirath.com ( 807148 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @08:53AM (#11218178)
    Judging from just the comments so far, I fear this amount of misinformation this thread is going to pickup about Japan. Perhaps the PDA can just have a nice little FAQ for the uninformed who somehow or another managed to wind up in Tokyo. (Because they thought it would be neat.) Or the simple things, like "proper business card manners" for the businessmen.

    So far in this thread I've seen all the typical: misleading posts about Japan hating foreigners, misleading posts about Japanese loving foreigners, uninformed posts about the language, complete and utter guesswork abound... etc. Japan seems to be a really popular place for folks with a few thousand bucks and too much time on their hands to head off to these days, head full of myths and a complete unwillingness to deal with anything not of their own culture... then come back and proclaim to all they meet what they "learned".

    I figure it's only a matter of time before someone posts the myth that immersion (as an adult) instantly and automagically equals the best way to learn the complex language and writing that even the Japanese spend much of their schooling learning. In short, best of luck... you could actually study the language, culture, and actually try to make a good impression, but I suppose that was never really the point.

    • Re:*Sigh* (Score:2, Interesting)

      by augnober ( 836111 )
      To do a little more of the same that you're complaining about, although somewhat qualifying your argument in the process... Here are things I heard from people living there... (just passing it along) In Japan (Osaka and Tokyo in particular), I came into contact with some people who had lived there over a year and admitted with some embarrassment that they knew practically none of the language. This made up most of the foreigners who I met. These were mostly guys, some of whom pointed out that they found

      • Re:*Sigh* (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Rirath.com ( 807148 )
        I'd say it means the folks you talk to (and you) have a pretty good sense of reality and don't lend themselves to much idle gossip. The guys know that the girls are practicing English, for example.

        As for the scholar, he seems on track and realistic. Upper level proficiency could take ages, much less actually mastering anything. The JLPT level 1 test for example has about 2,000 kanji and 10,000 words, and recommends around 900 hours study. That would probably cover all your day to day usage, but goin

    • I'm surprised that everyone's talking about language and translation. Of course the software needs to be in the language you speak, but I would think that automatic translation would be harder and less useful than maps, exchange rates, train schedules, and notices like, "Today is a holiday. The busses are not running."

  • Plan! (Score:2)

    by bje2 ( 533276 ) *
    1. Visit Japan
    2. Steal PDA
    3. ????
    4. Profit!

  • First-hand experience this year in Japan (Score:3, Informative)

    by echocharlie ( 715022 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @09:08AM (#11218276) Homepage
    I went to Japan for the first time this year as part of a tour group. I also was afraid of the language barrier, even though I actually know a little Japanese and can read a bit. But it was a lot easier than I could have imagined. Many of the people know enough English to answer basic questions, especially the younger people.

    At the hotels, all of the staff know quite a bit of English, as well as the staff at all the tourist spots. Mind you, I was in Osaka, not Japan, which should have been less-English friendly but wasn't. Many of the signs are in English on the Highways and in mass transit, so getting around was a piece of cake.

    It was certainly easier to get around than I expected, and although I knew a bit of Japanese, I avoided using it (mostly due to my fear of being embarassed for saying something inadvertantly inappropriate). I'd imagine Tokyo would be even more friendly for tourists, and I'd definitely like to go there one day. In short, everyone should consider going there; the language barrier isn't much of one. I think I had a harder time getting around in Europe than I did in Japan.
  • Thought of this when I was hopping from train to train in England.

    1. A PDA that mounts on your arm. that will free up a hand
    2. built-in GPS unit
    3. built-in train schedule

    So if you wanted to get from one city to another in England(or any country with a decent rail system), it notes your position, and guides you to the nearest train station.

    Then add in other features like eatery info, bed&breakfasts, etc. Surely would have helped me when I was in England.
  • You Type: Hello how are you doing today, which way to the motel?

    You get:

    They hear: How whether there is a method to the motel which today has been done today?

  • Smaller project than you think. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sakusha ( 441986 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @09:47AM (#11218531)
    I've read about this on other websites, this project is so tiny it's practically nonexistent, there are only 50 PDAs to loan. There is considerable speculation that the project is intended primarily to gather GPS data on tourist travels rather than to provide any useful information to tourists.
  • The US Army uses the Phraselator [phraselator.com] handheld computer for field soldiers to communicate to Iraqi citizens. It voice-recognizes a stock phrase in the input language (English) and then speaks it in the target language (Arabic). No messy phrasebooks or keypads.
    You can get these for other language pairs and activity domains.
  • I've been going on about this idea for years - give people a cheap, dumb-terminal wireless PDA the size of a palm pilot when they enter an airport, all it does is pick up a signal from the nearest transmitter and then it can tell you exactly where you are, you can then type in your flight number and it will transmit back directions to your check-in, gate, where to get coffee, how long you have etc etc. you just drop it off as you board the plane, if it breaks its dirt cheap and if you try and nick it the tr
  • ...and thought "Public display of affection"? I thought they were saying Japan was going to film porno on the streets or something!
  • Personally, I'm not in favor of this PDA system. I think the fear of the language barrier might be a good thing, because it keeps the people most likely not to even TRY to be good, respectful visitors from visiting.

    I've been to Japan twice now, with only the Japanese language skills I learned from a Berlitz book/CD, Shogun and a great book called Japanese Street Slang [dimspace.com]. I didn't use anything from the last book, but the other two were enough for me to get around without relying heavily on using English.

    • > I think the fear of the language barrier might be a good thing, because it keeps the people most likely not to even TRY to be good, respectful visitors from visiting.

      Have you SEEN the Ugly American Stereotype in his native (foreign) habitat? They think that speaking English louder will somehow make it comprehensible. These people aren't stopped by anything but the threat of dirty toilets or bullets.

      (I have to admit that my own parents have been known to do this, without even prefacing it with "do you
    • They have an online discussion board [lonelyplanet.com] where you can ask for and get information and even meet other travellers/expats while you're over there. It's a good source for very recent information, unlike the books which can at times be poorly updated.
  • Otherwise, first message on turning on the PDA:

    "How are you gentlemen."
  • Japan's tourism authority will lend the PDAs containing Chinese, Korean and English software, to selected tourists who land at Narita Airport near Tokyo from February through March to test the response, the transport ministry said.

    Woo hoo! That's exactly when I'll be going to Japan and through Narita airport. Hope I get one of these to play with. If I do, I'll submit a review.

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