As expected, there are not many places in the world that take more of a jaw-dropping turn than Japan when it comes to disturbing toys. That being said, here are my top ten most disturbing Japanese toys that I would seriously hesitate giving to any child.

10. Poop and Pee Plushies

Japan has a strange relationship with poop. I can’t tell you how many potty-training and poop related children’s toys I’ve come across, but it’s more than I could have ever imagined. Sure, poop jokes are always funny, but somehow the idea of teaching your child to snuggle with their own excrement via plushies just doesn’t sound healthy to me. Please, prove me wrong.

9. H-Bouya USB Toy

The H-Bouya is a plug in USB toy in the form of a small boy. I’m not sure what twisted tween-age mind came up with this one, but the H-Bouya’s main trick is giggling and blushing every time you press the letter “h” on your keyboard. In Japanese “h” stands for “etchi,” meaning sex, erotic, or pervert (oh my god, she said “h” hehehehe). The H-bouya also reacts to other love related words like suki (like/love), deeto (date), and much more.

I guess it’s kinda funny, but I’m not sure if the H-bouya is supposed to be amusing for kids or adults. It seems like it would get old faster than the new Ferby which lasted only about 30 seconds after I turned it on.

8. Virus Plush

In the past few years, plushies in the shape of diseases have become pretty common in the States, but that’s not the only place. This Japanese plush for babies is modeled after a virus for maximum fun time! Above left is the Japanese virus plush. Below, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). And above right, a small child that appears to be contracting AIDS.

Am I the only one that sees the resemblance? No? Well, this is sure to be a happy ending. I can’t see how anything could go wrong here.

7. Face Bank

My parents have always taught me the importance of saving money, but honestly, I’ve never really been any good at it. But you know, It’s really a shame that a bank like this one didn’t exist when I was a kid because I’m sure I would have saved money in fear that Satan would devour my soul if I didn’t offer it my lunch money as tribute.

As shown, the Face Bank comes in solid colors and is rather plain – that is, expect for the soulless, haunting eyes and subhuman face protruding from the front of it. The Face Bank will stare you down with its lifeless, chimpanzee face until you appease it with your pocket change. It will then proceed to devour said change with its robotic jaws and then let out a satisfied belch.

There is something truly terrifying about a robotic creature mimicking human-like functions in such a lifeless manner. Seriously, this thing is pure nightmare fuel.

6.Road Kill Cat

“Mommy? What happened to Mittens?” Don’t even bother conjuring up some BS story about Mittens running  away or going off to play with the neighbors. Just throw your kid this thing and they’ll eventually get the idea. Or, at least it will give them something to do with all those extra Hot Wheels cars laying around the house. I’m sure they’ll be just as happy as the kid on the package- all smiles! :D

5. Rubber Lips

Do you remember those old “candy” lips that looked really tasty but actually tasted like freshly waxed baboon butt (and were about the same color)? That’s what these Japanese toy rubber lips reminded me of when I first saw them, only somehow much more disturbing (not at all in a suggestive way). Japanese rubber lips are mobile, so you can preform a range of activities while wearing them including talking, eating hoagies, or even scaring the Milk of Magnesia out of your aged neighbors! Honestly, I’m not sure what the purpose of these things is, but I really don’t want to know.

4. Russian Roulette Toy Gun

“Hey guys! I’ve got a great idea!” Let’s play with guns!” That’s basically what this Japanese Russian Roulette game says to me. The game includes a toy gun similar to a Nerf gun that “fires” randomly. Young children put the toy gun to their heads and pull the trigger to test their luck. Somehow making the gun shoot out hippopotamus legs instead of bullets is supposed to make this so much more acceptable.

Sounds like a roaring good time to me. In expert mode kids use a real gun!

3. Japanese Pregnant Doll

All this time I’ve been deluded into thinking Japan has been coming out with a steadily more shocking line of toys every year, but I was wrong. This 19th century doll showing the stages of pregnancy is on my list of the top 3 most disturbing toys ever. It’s only saving grace is the fact that this doll was originally made as a medical model. However, evidence suggests that it was later used for entertaining children.

This, however, raises more disturbing questions. Call me culturally ignorant, but who decided a pregnancy doll was a great thing to use as a child’s play thing? My money is on a doctor giving whatever he had on hand that wasn’t pointy to his children in order to make them shut up, and it happened to be this.

2. You Can Shave the Baby!

This toy has become a sort of myth on the internet and among Japanese toy enthusiasts. However, after doing some research, I found that this toy was originally designed by the Polish artist Zbigniew Libera. Even though this discovery was slightly disappointing, I still think “You Can Shave the Baby” qualifies as one of the disturbing toys ever in Japan.

As you can see, this baby doll comes with hair on all sorts of exciting regions of the body. And you know what the best part is? You can shave it! Unfortunately, it doesn’t grown back, but nothing beats the joy one gets from a good, clean shave. Am I right?

In all seriousness though, I wouldn’t touch this thing with a ten foot pole. Just look at its death glare (it must be unhappy from all that hair). And from the looks of things on the internet, I would say people tend to agree on this subject.

Warning: This video is PG-13

I sincerely hope I’m not the only one here who thinks there is something exceedingly unnerving about having your child shave an infant’s pelvic hair. This is psychopath-making material, right here.

1. Baby in the Microwave Toy

It both encourages me and horrifies me to know that, no matter how desensitized I think I am to ludicrous Japanese inventions, there is always something new to prove me wrong. The baby in the microwave toy is, sadly, exactly what it sounds like: the model of a small child who has been blown up in a microwave. I’m not sure if things could get any more deranged even if I tried.

Honestly, I would have loved to be there to see the sales pitch for this one. The man who pitched this must have been a genius (or a great comedian) to convince someone to market this “gem” of a toy.

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This is just a small sampling of the number of disturbing toys in the world. Unfortunately, there are many, many more both inside and outside of Japan. What is the creepiest toy you’ve ever seen or heard of? Let us know! Share your story with us in the comments section below!

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Bonus Wallpapers!

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Now, when I say “overwhelmed” with English words, I don’t just mean there are a lot of them. I mean they are everywhere in Japan- staring you down and mocking you every way you turn. You can’t hide. They’re watching you.

At first, this fact was easy for me to just accept, even if it wasn’t what I expected Japanese to be (Free English words? score!), and it’s not especially apparent to residents of Japan who are surrounded by it everyday.

But, have you ever wondered why there are so many English words lurking about in Japan like a bunch of drunk party crashers?I mean, who invited them there anyway when Japan has a perfectly good language of its own? I’ll tell you why. The motivation for absorbing so many words from other languages can be broken down into four categories: compensation, upgrading, obscuring, and humor.

Compensation and Modernization

“Compensation” is probably the most obvious reason for stealing (I mean borrowing) words from foreign languages. In terms of linguistics, compensation has to do with absorption of foreign loanwords into the areas of a language where vocabulary is not yet developed or does not yet already exist. Since languages start off with an abundance of vocabulary in some fields, and a lack of vocabulary in others (see Part 1), it’s only natural that with language contact and the introduction of new cultural concepts, things get traded.

After Japan’s isolation period ended in 1868 and the doors to trade with the West were finally (forced) open, Japan had a lot of “catching-up” to do. With the trading of new goods from aboard, a whole heap of Western and technical terminology breached the floodgates. Then, with the American occupation during the years following WWII, Japan was heavily influenced by the ‘Murican forces – Japan was going to learn the word for cheeseburger whether they liked it or not! Of course, this introduced a whole slew of other words and ideas to the language that had never been present before. One of them was probably type 2 diabetes.

Okay, so it’s pretty obvious that English loanwords have often compensated for gaps in the Japanese vocabulary (spoon, fork, knife) and vice versa (sushi, tsunami, rickshaw). But, what about the cases in which a foreign word is adopted where a perfectly good native Japanese word already exists? This is where things get interesting – and complicated.

As you may have noticed, the rate at which Japanese has absorbed loanwords has resulted in a number of synonyms in the language, making it all the more frustrating for learners. I realize English is even worse, but seriously, does there have to be 6 words in the dictionary for everyone one I look up (Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by his toe?). Yes, it does seem ridiculous, but there are reasons for everything.

Let me Upgrade You

Just as Kango, or words of Chinese origin, can have a classical, academic effect in the Japanese language (see Part 1), Western-based terms, especially from English, have effects of their own. One of these effects is social upgrading.

Due to a mess of political and cultural influences over the years, the English language is often regarded with a sense of elitism and prestige in Japan (though, sometimes it’s the opposite). Therefore, upgrading in this case refers to the social benefits received by using English loanwords in Japanese. In other words, using English vocabulary is a way of building one’s social image and making others say “Oh you fancy, huh?”

I got street cred, yo.

One example of this is using technical English terminology to sound as if you know something special and high-level. It’s sort of the same thing old Victorian era men did when they threw in random French words as if everyone knew French. I suppose since everyone is graded on their English skills in school, it’s almost like being really good at a subject like math in the US… sort of.

If it’s true that English carries an air of prestige, then it’s only natural that advertising companies would eat this stuff up (they have to sell you stuff so you can be cool, of course). Countless companies in Japan have created English advertising campaigns in an attempt to make their products look high-class, or “swag” as you kids say. And since commercials have such an influential force over the very flexible minds of young whippersnappers, English has become the coolest of the cool (it’s just so ironic).

Consequently, more and more English words have flooded the Japanese pop culture scene in recent years. However, because English is obviously not the native language of Japan, this has resulted in some pretty hilarious and downright confusing situations.

Although social upgrading is not the primary motivation for adopting English loanwords, it is especially associated with communication between youth and in the commercial realm.

Obscuring the Facts

English loanwords are not absorbed solely for fashion purposes. When I asked my Japanese friend Yuri how she felt when hearing English loanwords, she said:

“English words make everything sound blurry and vague.”

It happens in every language; foreign words are used to cover-up unpleasant or taboo ideas. Using a foreign word in place of a native one has the effect of obscuring the meaning, therefore blunting the force of said word. So, just as I can yell “scheiße!” in an American grocery store surrounded by elderly women without turning too many heads, people in Japan could potentially get away with advertising a big ‘ol F-bomb on their knickers.

That’s one classy granny. Now, an older woman in a “fart” shirt might seem innocent enough – just another helpless victim of marketing – but there are times when loanwords are used for less reputable purposes.

Rebel Yell

Angsty teenagers and rebels everywhere have their own way of sticking it the man, and language is usually a part of that. Japanese people who fit into this “rebellious” category often try to put themselves out of the mainstream by using language opaque to outsiders, and what better way to do that then to confuse everyone with English?

Using English as a rebellious language works in two ways: 1) instead of using it in a positive context, English words are usually selected to refer to negative ideas, and 2) the English language is sometimes mangled and warped to fit a particular group, separating it completely from standard usage.

For example, トラブる or トラブする means to make trouble, ペーパー (paper) means counterfeit money, and アド (address) refers to a hidden location. Graffiti written in romanized characters can also be found spewed all over the cities, giving the same effect of obscurity. Much of this has to do with creating in-groups and keeping social distance from the “majority.” Like man, if you don’t know yo street language, you be dissin’ yo homies. Word.

My English subtitles are so street, man.

Don’t Feel Guilty

Another effect English loanwords have is the diminishing of guilt associated with taboo subjects by creating euphemisms or codes. An interesting example is DCブランド. The original meaning of this phrase is “discount on name brand goods,” but it’s come to refer to students whose grades are primarily low Cs and Ds. Oh, the scandal! Money lending companies also like to take advantage of the vagueness of English words. “Money loan? Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

Another example of this would be the words “hug” and “kiss” in Japanese. Have you ever wondered why English loanwords are used in these situations when obviously hugs and kisses weren’t imported from the UK or America (or were they)? Of course, these words do exist in Japanese, but over time their English counterparts have replaced them as common use words. According to my friend Yuri:

“If someone says せっぷん (kiss) or ほうよう (hug) in Japanese, I think everyone would be like, ‘Huh?! What happened?!’”

Blasphemy!!!

So, the Japanese words for hug and kiss sound very heavy and serious, while their English counterparts sound less like a dramatic scene in a K-drama and more like a good pat on the back. Good to know. If you think about English, “taboo” words are disguised all the time, too – especially by widely giggling junior high students. Giggity!

Be Polite!

Obscuring the truth is not always a bad thing. I mean, do you really have to tell your girlfriend that in fact, yes, her butt does look ginormous in those pants? In Japanese, using the English counterparts to native terms can sometimes be polite. For example, if you want to say copulate in Japanese, using “エッチ (ecchi, or H)” is a nicer way to do so, and saying “トイレ (toire)” instead of “便所 (benjo)” is always a good choice if you want to save your poor grandmother’s ears from your blasphemous mouth.

My granddaughter says what on Facebook now?

My friend Yuri gave a great example of this concept, too:

“When I don’t like something I can just say: ‘この部品はスタンダード (standard) から外れているかな’ (kono buhin wa sutandaado kara hazureteiru kana, “I wonder if this part is lacking something…“)

“Standard,” huh? Sounds pretty vague to me. During the interview she went on to describe how even her sociology textbook is filled with indirect English terms, used to avoid being overly harsh on touchy subjects. One of the chapter titles in her sociology textbook was: ネガティブなまなざしを感じ取るースティグマ化 (negatibu na manazashi wo kanjitoru – sutigumaka, Looking at negative perceptions – a changing stigma). If you’ll notice, the words “negative,” and “stigma” are both in English. If you try looking over some Japanese material, you might notice this trend.

Have Some Humor

The last use of English loanwords in Japanese I will touch briefly on is humor. Although it can be difficult to understand humor in other cultures, making fun of other languages is always a classic. However, since English is studied by all students in Japan, it’s a special case. Comedians love to twist the language and make it sound even stupider. For example, one comedian gets laughs by attaching the Japanese honorific “o” to plain loanwords like “juice.” Apparently the ridiculousness of the whole thing is a real gut-buster (I don’t get it).

The use of loanwords in Japanese is very complicated, and this is no way an exhaustive list of uses. However, getting a feel for the flavor English loanwords have in the language is a great way to better understand Japanese, especially when it comes to all those synonyms (and maybe even some Japanese humor). Although this “Westernization” of the Japanese language has been strongly criticized in recent years, all societies have their own ways of expressing social issues through language, and I happen to find the case of English loanwords in Japanese especially mind blowing. Have any thoughts on the subject? Hit me up in the comments section below.

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Sources:
Language Contact in Japan: a Sociolinguistic History

Read All the Posts in This Series:
Japanese, The Borrower Language Part 1: Where the Japanese Language Came From
Japanese, The Borrower Language Part 2: Twisting Words
Japanese, The Borrower Language Part 3: Why They Do It

Japanese cell phones, for example, have long suffered from “Galápagos syndrome” — meaning that they have evolved in very specialized and unique ways that make them suited for Japan and Japan alone.

Toilets too, have evolved in uniquely Japanese ways that haven’t ever really caught on elsewhere in the world. If only we could have the sort of heated seat, butthole-sprayin’ luxury of Japanese toilets here in the USA.

Then there are fax machines. While it seems like a lot of the world has moved on from the fax machine and embraced the personal computer, Japanese has lagged behind. According to the Washington Post, almost 60% of Japanese households have a fax machine, and most businesses use one regularly.

How did Japan become so infatuated with this archaic piece of technology? What’s next — are the Japanese going to dust off their Laserdiscs and eight-tracks too? (Quadrophonic sound is pretty cool tho.)

The way I figure, there are three main reasons the Japanese cling to fax machines:

Aversion to Personal Computers

I’d say that Japan still loves the fax machine for a lot of the same reasons behind Japan’s Tokugawa-style isolationism on the internet — Japan didn’t adopt the personal computer as swiftly or as whole-heartedly as the rest of the world.

This not only means that Japanese website are kind of wonky, but it also means that Japanese people aren’t as accustomed to using a personal computer. Thus, scanning and emailing a document seems a lot harder than just faxing it.

Go Hard (Copy)

Let me share something embarassing with you: I still get my bills in the mail and even *gasp* buy CDs, just because I like the physicality of it all.

Fortunately for my pride, I’m not alone in this preference toward the tangible. On at least some level, the Japanese still hang on to a lot of old traditions just for this reason.

Résumés are often still hand-written, so it’s probably no surprise that the Japanese much prefer a copy via fax than via email.

Older Folk

Everybody knows that Japan gettin’ pretty old (we’ve talked about Japan’s elderly many times before) — it’s one of the most rapidly aging populations in the world, meaning that there are more old people than young people. And not to be ageist but, generally speaking, older people aren’t great at adapting to new technologies.

If faxing works, and people know how to use it, why change it? Just like the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Will Japan Ever Give Up the Fax?

It’s pretty clear why the Japanese still use the fax, but less clear whether or not they’ll ever ditch it in favor of more modern tech.

More than anything, the problem isn’t technical — it’s cultural. Faxes will only be phased out in Japan once the culture around them changes. For better or worse though, cultural changes are near-impossible to predict, so it’s kind of a crap shoot to say if or when Japan will give up faxing.

Who knows? Maybe they’ll switch over to telegram.

Read more: Japan and the fax: A love affair, In Japan, fax machines remain important because of language and culture

Header photo by Yortw

Let me pull back the curtain for a bit and show the absolute nightmare that exists behind Japanese text on the internet.

Kanji, Kanji Everywhere

If you’re unfamiliar with Asian history and culture, ancient Chinese culture had a tremendous impact on virtually every culture in East Asia. Other countries in Asia adopted Chinese food (like ramen!), customs, and parts of the language.

Most of you probably already know that the complicated characters in Japanese called kanji come from Chinese characters, but it doesn’t stop there. Korean has its own adaptation of Chinese characters called hanja, and until colonialism, Vietnamese used Chinese characters in its language.

These are all known as han characters, or sometimes CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) characters.

You’d think that this would be a good thing, right? All these different countries and cultures using han characters, it’s like everybody’s joined hands and is singing We Are The World, right?

Oh, if only.

Why Kanji Doesn’t Look Quite Right On The Internet

Why are these han characters a problem? It has something to do with Unicode, a commonly used standard that’s used to display text from different languages on computers.

Somewhere down the line, somebody thought that it would be a great idea to save time and space by saying that, in Unicode, all of these han characters are, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same. This process was called Han Unification, and would soon become the bane of my existence.

Han Unification is a problem because han characters can look different and mean different things in each language.

Just take a look at this picture: it’s the same Unicode character, rendered in five different languages:
The Chinese versions look completely different from the other languages.

Unless the website explicitly says that a piece of kanji text is Japanese (with the HTML lang attribute), it won’t look quite right. It might use the Chinese style and make everything else (i.e. kana) look out of place.

This becomes a problem more often than you might think, whether it’s on your phone, when using electronic flashcards, or just reading the news.

And when you throw in different fonts, operating systems, and browsers into the mix, all bets are off.

Worse still, people argue that this is exactly what Unicode should be like. The argument is that, despite stylistic and cultural differences, underneath it all these characters are essentially the same.

I can understand the rationale behind Han Unification but, since I have the emotional capacity of a child and just want things to work, I’m going to say that it’s dumb and stupid and I hate it.

Why Japanese Isn’t Readable On The Internet

But hey, if your kanji looks wrong, all’s not lost. You can always use furigana, the simple, little characters you see above kanji to help you read them. Right?

Wrong.

While there is the technology to do this on the web (the HTML ruby element), you won’t see it much. It just doesn’t work on all web browsers (like Firefox), and few people choose to use it on their websites.

I would love to include furigana in the kanji I write to make it easier for beginners, but right now it’s not really an option.

But, unfortunately, web developers seem much more interested in tech demos and proof-of-concept sites than making sure the web looks as good in other languages as it does in English.

Maybe someday Japanese will get the first-class treatment on the web that it deserves, but right now I think we have a long way to go.

Of course, the iPad is poised to change the way we learn in a lot of ways (textbooks, learning games, etc), but since Japanese is one of the most popular languages to learn out there, and because those that learn Japanese tend to be a lot more tech savvy than, say, those who learn Spanish (take that, Spanish!), there’s going to be a huge amount of Japanese + iPad potential as soon as it comes out in March (or April, if you want the 3G enabled one).

iPad Applications for Japanese Learning

One of the coolest things about the iPad is that you can use any iPhone / iPod Touch app and scale it up to fit the iPad (and apparently it looks pretty good). That means you have access to every Japanese learning app that’s already on there, not to mention any new apps that take advantage of the iPad.

The application that I’m most excited for (pictured on the right, above) is a Smart.fm (or Anki) application. Right now, I don’t feel like the apps will translate as is to an iPad version very effectively. They’ll work, but everything’s going to be HUGE. Too huge. There is, however, so much potential for an iPad-only version of the Smart.fm app. Especially if you get the 3G version of the iPad, a Smart.fm app would be perfect for vocab study on the go – much more usable than the iPhone / web versions.

Besides this, though, I’d love to see more (and I’m sure I will) in this space, including apps that let you practice writing kanji right on the screen, and more. What apps would you like to see specifically for the iPad? I could see some good potential for language exchange applications, though they couldn’t be too “typing” intensive.

Japanese Textbooks

After the iPad goes mainstream, nobody will ever pick up a regular, old textbook again. Why? Not because you can read text on the iPad. That’s dumb (even with the ability to swipe pages around on screen). Although it won’t happen immediately, Textbooks on the iPad are going to be way more than textbooks. I don’t know what exactly publishers can do with their books for the iPad right now, but here is how I imagine it (and if this isn’t the way it works, then there will be apps!).

Imagine, you open your textbook, but it isn’t just a textbook. You touch a word in Japanese, and you can hear the audio of someone speaking it. You want to see the stroke order for something, and you can just click on it (and even practice writing it right on the screen). Better yet, there are interactive question / answer section, which allow you to write in your answers, take notes, and more. How freakin’ cool would that be. Beyond just text, you have audio, video, interactive activities, and much much more. Learning via textbook will no longer be so boring and one-sided. It will be dynamic, and there will (actually) be potential for people to use Textbooks to self teach themselves something.

Of course, one of the reasons I’m really excited about the iPad is because I feel like it could be a perfect vessel for my own Japanese teaching / learning site, TextFugu. In terms of Japanese Textbooks, TextFugu already has a lot of the features I’ve listed above, though the iPad would give it so much more sexy! So, anyone know how one would / should learn how to make iPad applications / where someone amazing could be hired?

Writing Kanji On The iPad

Right now, you can write kanji into your iPhone / iPod touch. But it sucks. It kind of sort of works, but it’s too small and writing with your finger is a bit tough. With the iPad, I feel like there’s a lot of potential for applications that are just for practicing kanji writing. Now, I’m not sure about the differences in learning with your fingers and learning with a pen, but if the iPad was coupled with a stylus (like the Pogo for example), I could see a lot of good things happening in regards to being able to write in Japanese on the iPad. Various applications could help you practice writing kanji, tell you if you’re right or wrong, and help you write more beautifully (unlike the above example on my iPhone). Not to mention, with a pressure sensitive screen, you could practice you calligraphy as well.

If There Was A Camera…

Who knows, maybe there will be… there is, apparently, a spot for one (though my bet goes on iPad version 2 having a camera). If there was a camera, think of how easy it would be to talk to someone in Japan and practice your Japanese? Of course, you can do this with your laptop, but the reality is that most mainstream computer users still have trouble (or are just afraid with) using a camera on their laptop. With a device like the iPad, all this gets streamlined (software, hardware, etc) and therefor everything just works better. The mystery would be removed, and applications / websites could be made just for the iPad to help make culture and language exchanges happen. When things are made really easy and convenient, a lot of people use them, and I think there’s a lot of potential there for the iPad making this work.

Also imagine taking classes on the iPad. Lots of advancement has been made in this field, and the iPad is the perfect place to take advantage of this. Of course, most online classrooms run in Flash, and we all know that Apple doesn’t really like those lazy bums at Adobe.

What Would You Like To See?

I know I’m missing some things, but that’s where you come in. What Japanese learning tools would you like to see on the iPad? There’s so much that can be done with a product like this, especially if when it goes mainstream with the public. I’m super excited for what the iPad can do for Japanese learning (and education in general, really). What about you?

P.S. Have you seen the original Japanese iPad?

P.P.S. You should follow me on Twitter.

1. Google Image Search

A while back, the Official Google Blog had a really cool post about how to use Google Image Search as a visual dictionary. The basic premise is that if you’re talking to someone who speaks another language, and you’re both trying to figure out a certain word, you can just use Google Image Search to figure out what it is you’re both talking about. Since you can search in both languages (and get pretty good results), you can use Google as a sort of visual translator or dictionary. For example, say you’re both trying to say the word “penguin.”

In English, you just say “penguin,” but in Japanese you would say ペンギン (pengin). Even though it’s a loan word, the pronunciation is different enough to fool two beginning language learners.

“Is it a bird?”
“Yes…”
“Is it black and white?”
“Yes”
“A Penguin?”
“No, a Pengin. hmm.”
“A what? Let’s just search an image…”

And yes, that conversation was totally and completely ripped from the Google blog. Sue me… actually, please don’t. [Google Images]

2. Figuring out words based search results

Maybe about a year ago, I was trying to remember the verb that went with piano in order to say “play the piano.” There’s some weird rules when it comes to instrument playing verbs that mean “to play,” and I couldn’t find a definitive answer via my dictionary. Then I realized I could use Google to my advantage.

I thought I’d try the verb “hiku” (ひく) which is how you say “to play” when it comes to stringed instruments. Pianos are kind of funny because they have strings, but they’re hidden strings and you don’t directly touch them, so I was wondering if maybe it was an exception. I typed it into Google and was able to find a plethora of phrases which included ピアノをひく (piano wo hiku), which meant I could safely assume it was the right result. Other things that I tried had fewer search results (Google shows the number of results, which can be a good indication of whether you’re right or wrong), or didn’t have the entire phrase all together (and all the words were spread out amongst the title and content, which of course means the phrase was wrong as well). This is a really useful tool if you just want to make sure something is correct, and can even be used to emulate and borrow someone else’s sentences. [Google Search]

3. Google Video (aka YouTube)

If you’re always looking for cute Japanese cat videos, then this is for you. Really, it’s almost the same as the image search, so I’m not going to spend much time talking about it, though there are a few more neat little pluses you can get out of video that you can’t in image.

Of course, with video you’re going to get a better visual than if you did an image search (though it will take longer if you actually watch these things). One perk is that there’s a decent chance you’ll be able to hear the actual word used in action, or you can listen / watch the word you’re “looking up” in context, which can be valuable as well. Really, though, if you want to get a word in context, it might just be better to look it up at smart.fm or somewhere not so Googly. [YouTube]

4. Google’s Translated Search

This is a really really cool tool. You can actually search for something in your native language (let’s say English), and Google translate your search and then show you results from the language you want to search in (let’s say Japanese). That’s not where it ends, however. It will show two columns of search results. One column will be the original Japanese content, and the other column will be the translated English version. This means you get a side-by-side translation of your search results, which also means you can look up all kinds of things (and read them) while at the same time targeting only Japanese content.

Of course, be sure to take these things with a grain of salt. Once you get beyond one-word translations, you can really start getting into trouble. Still, this is a great tool to look words and phrases up, and see what Google thinks the translation is. It’s just a great way to double check a word or translation that you already have a decent grasp of. Better yet, it’s in context! [Google Translated Search]

5. Call someone in Japan with Google Voice

If you’re cool like me and you got an invite to Google Voice, then you’ll know that you can call people on the uber-cheap. Now, this totally depends on you having people you can call without being incredibly creepy (and you should probably do a quick google search to see what time it is right now in Tokyo), but I’ll leave that part up to you. It’s only 3 cents a minute to call someone in Japan via Google voice, so if you know someone that’s willing to answer your Penguin translation questions, then you’re gold. Oh, and while you’re doing it you can use Google image search to confirm things, right?

And yes, another option is Skype, but we’re talking about Google right now! Expect to see a “call me” button somewhere on the side of this blog sometime soon, too. Google Voice will let you leave me messages. I look forward to all your drunken phone calls!

6. Google’s Advanced Search

If you feel like you’ve got the “normal” search stuff down, then maybe it’s time to go advanced. This is a great way to learn all the Google shortcuts that will get you better results down the road. If you find yourself looking for a word that has a lot of search results you don’t want, you can search minus things that have that word. You can add more words to narrow your search down. You can choose the language you want to search in. The list goes on and on.

Of course, how you use this all depends on what you’re looking for, but it’s a great way to narrow things down and look for the exact word, phrase, or whatever to get the results you want. [Google Advanced Search]

7. Translating Your Docs and E-mails

Maybe it’s just me, but I use Google docs (and gmail) all the time. I live in both of those places. At work, we use Google Docs instead of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. Working at eduFire means I get a decent amount of e-mails and docs in other languages. Google is my somewhat inaccurate translating savior. There is a feature in both g-docs and gmail (in gmail you have to add it through gmail labs) that lets you translate your content in any language that Google does translations (which is a lot).

Here’s the original message (above)

And here’s the translated message (above)

First of all, the translation pretty garbage, and secondly, if you’re learning Japanese this isn’t something you necessarily want to rely on. It can be a good resource for beginners / intermediates to get an idea of what something is about, before diving in and really studying it to pull out a real translation, though. Also great for penpals! Couple this up with Rikaichan and you’ve got yourself something golden. [Google Docs, Google Mail]

8. Google Translate Japanese to English

I’m not a huge fan of translation services, as you’ve probably already figured out. They make you lazy and they’re usually quite off. Still, I have to admit, as long as you aren’t doing anything too sensitive to painful translation mistakes, you can use these things to get the gist of something before you work out a better translation.

I put my American culture website Koichi弁 through the translator, and it came out nice and funny. Maybe it’s my strange Japanese… though most likely it’s the translator. Still, it gives you a basic picture of what’s going on.

If you do use Google Translate, I’d recommend translating things one word at a time (just like looking up words in a dictionary). There are some better dictionary services out there, but as I said before, today the Goog gets the spotlight. [Google Translate]

9. Google Calendar to Schedule Your Studies

If you’re as busy as me, calendars and e-mails rule your life. I highly recommend getting a calendar to everyone, and gCal is a good one.

You can set up reminder alerts (perhaps for your Japanese classes?), you can block off Japanese self-study sessions, remind yourself to finish up that flashcard set,  or give yourself an hour to write a Japanese journal entry to be corrected by native Japanese speakers. Staying organized is a great thing when it comes to studying, and it helps keep you on track (and helps you to set goals!). Did you know that people who write down their goals are statistically 10x more successful than those that don’t? [Google Calendar]

10. Use Google to Find Other Search Engines That do Similar Things

Of course, Google isn’t the only one that can do all these things. There’s Bing, Yahoo, Ask, Wolfram Alpha, and so on. All these other search engines have similar features, and they come up with slightly different results, depending on what you’re trying to do. This means that if Google isn’t doing it for you, then one of the other search engines may be able to give you a hand.

I hope this guide helped you, and I know there are a ton more ways to use Google to your advantage when studying Japanese. What are your favorite Google tricks, whether they are listed here or not?