Transliteration and translation with pronunciation tips on top

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5 commentsMonday, October 13, 2008

Google Maps Introducing English Labels For Japan

Transliteration and translation with pronunciation tips on top

4 Comments

By StrategyCore (WPN reader) - Thu, 11/13/2008 - 16:09

Google Japan Maps use English labels

Well done Google! Japanese online maps (and most mapping content) have traditionally been less than supportive of the English language, and this will be a major step forward in providing a better user experience for those people who do not read the Japanese language. I am sure Google will be expanding this feature to include additional languages in the future.

By nick may (WPN reader) - Sun, 11/02/2008 - 01:56

English on maps

I suspect that one reason why google has made the effort in this case was that for the last 16th months or so 3rd parties (such as myself) have been offering google maps with English labels on top. The fact that we could do it so easily possibly made them feel a little bad....

Of course having labels on the tiles is more elegant than hacking them in on top - so I am very glad that google has done this.

What google have not yet offered though is English language Japanese address lookup.

Again, this is quite possible - I have offered it on http://diddlefinger.com for Japan since June 2007.

They may come to regret their use of macrons if they ever DO go to full address search.

Additionally, the Jpaanese word "shi" does not map easily onto the English word city - at least some -shi refer to largely rural areas.

The other issue with translation is that it is sometimes better to have the approximate pronunciation of the Kanji - when thrown into conversation xxxx-district may not be meaningful to a Japanese person.

Still - nice to see them try.