Translating a Japanese-only instruction sheet

Post your best modeling tips here.
Post Reply

Topic author
robdebie
F2
F2
Posts: 67
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:27 am
Contact:
Status: Offline

Translating a Japanese-only instruction sheet

Post by robdebie »

Recently I obtained a Club-M Minardi M193. The instructions are only in Japanese. Now it's a simple enough kit to build, but you keep wondering what the text says.. I had heard you could do online translation of Japanese, so I scanned the pages, converted the grayscale result to pure black and white, and cropped the individual texts. Then I ran the JPG files through either http://www.i2ocr.com/free-online-japanese-ocr or https://convertio.co/nl/ocr/japanese/ to do the Optical Character Recognition. The results were then copied to https://translate.google.com/, et voila! Some translations are a bit awkward (like 'Bathe in blue') but generally you can understand the meaning.

Image

One drawback is that is pretty laborious..

Rob

SebLeung
F2 Champion
F2 Champion
Posts: 181
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:14 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Translating a Japanese-only instruction sheet

Post by SebLeung »

A quicker way that I do is to simply use the Google Translate iOS app (I assume the Android version would have the same features given it's made by Google), pressing the "Camera" feature, and it will translate in real time through your camera, so you can just point your phone at the instruction manual. Hope that helps
http://www.f1modelling.com
______________________________________________________________
PM me if you have an MFH 1/20 BT55 for sale (resin version, not metal)

Topic author
robdebie
F2
F2
Posts: 67
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:27 am
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Translating a Japanese-only instruction sheet

Post by robdebie »

Thanks! That sounds a lot faster indeed!! But I don't use a smartphone, so it will take the old-fashioned method for me.

Rob
Post Reply