Japanese email tutorial

Japanese WordMage is very useful for reading and translating any Japanese email you receive, as well as in the preparation of outgoing Japanese email messages. JWM works alongside your regular email software (eg. Eudora, Netscape Messenger, Mailsmith, etc.), rather than replacing it.

Reading and translating Japanese email
When a Japanese email message is received by email software which cannot display the Japanese character set, it will appear as gibberish rather than normal Japanese text. The example in Figure 1 shows the window of an email software package in the background containing Japanese text. However, there is nothing wrong with the Japanese text and it can be simply copied from the email software's window and pasted into the JWM Text dialog, ready for reading and translation. You may wish to read more information about translating Japanese text using JWM.

Figure 1. A Japanese email message

Preparing and sending Japanese email
Use the JWM wordprocessor to prepare your Japanese email message. Make sure you have selected a Japanese text format which can be read by the recipient of the email (otherwise they obviously won't be able to read it when they receive it). The most common format currently used is Shift-JIS format, and this can be set by pressing the Japanese text formats button on the top of the Text dialog and setting the 'File save' and 'Clipboard' to this format.

When you have your message ready, you can either send it as an email attachment (ie. attached to a normal English email message), or you can copy the text from the JWM Text dialog and paste it into the 'New message' window of your email software. Then send away your email as usual. The text may look like gibberish in the email software's window, but should come out OK on the recipient's computer.