oldflame said:
Ned
What about contacting the publisher about a reprint.
Who here would be up for one at a reasonable cost? (not $200)
Me! ...and I have a couple of friends who have a few Springys each & who may very well be interested too.
As for translation, I can read most of the Kanji no problem (it's almost identical to traditional Chinese & I've been living in Hong Kong for 16 years), but not the Hiragana or Katakana
I've found a website that translates Kanji(漢字) and websites to Romaji or Hiragana, but unfortunately not the other way around : -
http://www.j-talk.com/nihongo/
It can still be pretty useful though, especially if you add it to your bookmark bar - it can parse sites like Ishibashi, Yahoo Auctions etc. & gives the English meaning if you use the "Roll Over" option. Seems a bit hit & miss now & then, but useful for getting to know the characters I guess - take a look at this (roll your mouse over the Japanese characters underlined with little dots to see the translation):-
http://www.j-talk.com/nihongo/index.php?url=http://page7.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g53179939
Trouble is of course that it won't work on text that is in an image, or a magazine or book ...
Another possibility is that my luthier friend Simon Pinder lived in Japan for a long while & has a Japanese girlfriend, I suppose I could ask her, but she's usually extremely busy working in China (for "Hello Kitty"!) for weeks at a time, he complains the hardly ever sees her. I'll ask Simon next time I see him, & report back, though they're off to UK & Switzerland for a few weeks at Chinese New Year so it would be quite a while before any results....
Doesn't anybody on here have a Japanese girlfriend or wife who might be able to help?