Anyone read Japanese?

The owner’s manual that came with my Miyata (a few years ago) is written in
Japanese. I don’t need to read it or anything, but does anyone know whether
this…

…is the Japanese character for “unicycle?” It appears often in the manual,
and it looks so much LIKE a person on a unicycle that I’m thinking that that’s
what it might be.

Thanks!

  • Joe in MN

=============================
If Teddy Grahams crackers
were shaped like goats instead of bears,
would they be Billy Grahams?

Re: Anyone read Japanese?

That’s the character for book (hon in Japanese). It has other meanings too,
like ‘base’, and it’s the counter for cylindrical objects like bottles of
beer (or legs in directions on how to ride a unicycle I guess). But it
doesn’t mean unicycle itself.

Here’s a page showing unicycle in many languages, but unfortunately it
doesn’t show ichi-rinsha in kanji:
http://tinyurl.com/152s

The ichi part means “One” and is a simple horizontal line. Rin means “Wheel”
and sha is any kind of vehicle. So it’s literally One Wheel Vehicle. Rin and
Sha are more complicated than I can describe in words though. If your web
browser can display Japanese characters, you can see it here by typing in
‘unicycle’: http://tinyurl.com/152x

Have fun deciphering the manual.

—Nathan

“Joe” <ickyslug@aol.complexity> wrote in message
news:20020824001342.27316.00002678@mb-bh.aol.com
> The owner’s manual that came with my Miyata (a few years ago) is written
in
> Japanese. I don’t need to read it or anything, but does anyone know
whether
> this…
>
> http://members.aol.com/ickyslug/jchar.jpg
>
> …is the Japanese character for “unicycle?” It appears often in the
manual,
> and it looks so much LIKE a person on a unicycle that I’m thinking that
that’s
> what it might be.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> - Joe in MN

Although there are millions of Japanese People not one of them can read Japanese. Sorry dude. Your just gonna have to make shit up for what the symbols mean. Thats what I do anyhow.

Chex

Anyone read Japanese?

Joe, in case your browser can’t display Kanji, here’s “Unicycle” in Japanese… I’m using the Japanese OS of Windows, so I just drew this up in MSPaint.

(click here) Ichirinsha

Re: Anyone read Japanese?

Greetings

In message “Anyone read Japanese?”,
Joe wrote…
>The owner’s manual that came with my Miyata (a few years ago) is written in
>Japanese. I don’t need to read it or anything, but does anyone know whether
>this…
>
>http://members.aol.com/ickyslug/jchar.jpg
>
>…is the Japanese character for “unicycle?” It appears often in the manual,
>and it looks so much LIKE a person on a unicycle that I’m thinking that that’s
>what it might be.
>

Japanese is my field of expertise. The character yu see there is HON “book”
repeated three times. Unicycle in Japanese is ICHIRINSHA and is written like
this:

Stay on top, Jack Halpern
Executive Director for International Development
International Unicycling Federation, Inc.
Website: http://www.kanji.org

Re: Anyone read Japanese?

Greetings

In message “Re: Anyone read Japanese?”,
Nathan Hoover wrote…

I just responded ion in another message before seeing this one…

>That’s the character for book (hon in Japanese). It has other meanings too,
>like ‘base’, and it’s the counter for cylindrical objects like bottles of
>beer (or legs in directions on how to ride a unicycle I guess). But it
>doesn’t mean unicycle itself.

That’s right. If you are really interested my dictionaries trteat these in-depth:

>Here’s a page showing unicycle in many languages, but unfortunately it
>doesn’t show ichi-rinsha in kanji:
>http://tinyurl.com/152s

I just posted it at:

I plan to make a unicode encoded page one day for all the languages we know of.

>The ichi part means “One” and is a simple horizontal line. Rin means “Wheel”
>and sha is any kind of vehicle. So it’s literally One Wheel Vehicle. Rin and
>Sha are more complicated than I can describe in words though. If your web
>browser can display Japanese characters, you can see it here by typing in
>‘unicycle’: http://tinyurl.com/152x
>
>Have fun deciphering the manual.

I think the manual is probably the Japanese version of my booklet ANYONE
CAN RIDE A UNICYCLE.

>
>—Nathan
>
>“Joe” <ickyslug@aol.complexity> wrote in message
>news:20020824001342.27316.00002678@mb-bh.aol.com
>> The owner’s manual that came with my Miyata (a few years ago) is written
>in
>> Japanese. I don’t need to read it or anything, but does anyone know
>whether
>> this…
>>
>> http://members.aol.com/ickyslug/jchar.jpg
>>
>> …is the Japanese character for “unicycle?” It appears often in the
>manual,
>> and it looks so much LIKE a person on a unicycle that I’m thinking that
>that’s
>> what it might be.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>> - Joe in MN
>
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
>rec.sport.unicycling mailing list - www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu
>

Regards, Jack Halpern
President, The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc.
http://www.cjk.org Phone: +81-48-473-3508

Re: Anyone read Japanese?

>I just posted it at:
>http://www.kanji.org/kanji/jack/unicycle/images/ichirinsha.gif

I see that all over the book too. Darn… The other thing would look better on
a T-shirt. Can we get the Japanese to change it?

>I think the manual is probably the Japanese version of my booklet ANYONE
>CAN RIDE A UNICYCLE.

It is!

>Regards, Jack Halpern

Thanks to all who responded.

  • Joe in MN

=============================
If Teddy Grahams crackers
were shaped like goats instead of bears,
would they be Billy Grahams?

Anyone read Japanese?

Yeah, well, if you want to walk around wearing a T-shirt that says “book”, you’ll score points with librarians.

Since the Chinese use the same character for “book” (the Japanese got it from the Chinese), I think you’re out-numbered
( 1,400,000,000 + 140,000,000 = 1,540,000,000:1 )
on the “switch the characters” idea.

You could just transpose the English words for “Unicycle” and “book” in your own vocabulary. The resulting confusion from your future posts to this forum is a small price to pay for your taste in Japanese ideography for T-shirts, though. :wink:

Re: Anyone read Japanese?

Greetings

In message “Re: Anyone read Japanese?”,
sendhair wrote…
>
>> -originally posted by Joe:-
>> DARN… THE OTHER THING WOULD LOOK BETTER ON A T-SHIRT. CAN WE GET THE
>> JAPANESE TO CHANGE IT?
>>
>
>Yeah, well, if you want to walk around wearing a T-shirt that says
>“book”, you’ll score points with librarians.
>
>Since the Chinese use the same character for “book” (the Japanese got it
>from the Chinese), I think you’re out-numbered
>( 1,400,000,000 + 140,000,000 = 1,540,000,000:1 )
>on the “switch the characters” idea.

No, if you are talking about the original character that was supposed to look
like a unicycle (HON), in Chinese it is not used in teh sense of book. In Chinese
it is SHU, which is also used in Japanese but is less common.

>
>You -could- just transpose the -English - words for “Unicycle” and
>“book” in your own vocabulary. The resulting confusion from your future
>posts to this forum is a small price to pay for your taste in Japanese
>ideography for T-shirts, though. :wink:
>
>
>–
>sendhair - Winking. Never blinking.
>
> Rick
>____________________________
>“Don’t pity me. Pity my creditors.” – James McNeill Whistler
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>sendhair’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/1019
>View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/19937
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
>rec.sport.unicycling mailing list - www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu
>

Regards, Jack Halpern
President, The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc.
http://www.cjk.org Phone: +81-48-473-3508

Anyone read Japanese?

Thanks, Jack, I stand corrected. So, BTW, can you show us the character used in Chinese for “Unicycle”? My dictionary doesn’t have it. Since the Chinese write “bicycle” differently than the Japanese, I’m guessing the same’s true for “Unicycle”.

Anyway, 140,000,000 to 1 is still long odds for changing the way to write “Unicycle” in Japanese. I think it looks fine as is.

Re: Anyone read Japanese?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sunday 25 August 2002 01:52 pm, sendhair wrote:
> Thanks, Jack, I stand corrected. So, BTW, can you show us the character
> used in Chinese for “Unicycle”? My dictionary doesn’t have it. Since
> the Chinese write “bicycle” differently than the Japanese, I’m guessing
> the same’s true for “Unicycle”.

Check out the unicycling FAQ at
http://www.unicycling.org/unicycling/faq.html#How%20do%20you%20say%20unicycle%20in%20different%20languages

The FAQ does lack the pronunication, which is du2lun2che1 (the numbers are
tone indicators). I literally means “single wheeled vehicle”. Taiwanese
will tend to say dan1lun2che1, which has the same meaning.

Beirne

>
> Anyway, 140,000,000 to 1 is still long odds for changing the way to
> write “Unicycle” in Japanese. I think it looks fine as is.
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Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

iD8DBQE9aT+bZ0K5gJuiS1QRAtMxAJ421u8zMSSrr0N3FJo/vk74EJUrMgCgwz0K
sxhJ3SUbqjBHd7qVdHB/Ut8=
=Jip9
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Re: Anyone read Japanese?

>Since the Chinese use the same character for “book” (the Japanese got it
>from the Chinese), I think you’re out-numbered
>( 1,400,000,000 + 140,000,000 = 1,540,000,000:1 )
>on the “switch the characters” idea.

Ah… So there’s a chance!

>You -could- just transpose the -English - words for “Unicycle” and
>“book” in your own vocabulary. The resulting confusion from your future
>posts to this forum is a small price to pay for your taste in Japanese
>ideography for T-shirts, though. :wink:
>
>
>–
>sendhair - Winking. Never blinking.
>
> Rick

Unicycle 'em, Dan-O!

  • Joe in MN

=============================
If Teddy Grahams crackers
were shaped like goats instead of bears,
would they be Billy Grahams?

Unicycle 'em, Dan-O!

Ha Ha! Very good! I like that!

Maybe we should all start saying “Unicycle” for “book” and vice versa…

  • About used cars: “What’s the Blue Unicycle value?”
  • Level Tenners can do “every trick in the Unicycle.”
  • “Press ‘Ctrl D’ now to Unicyclemark this page.”
  • Does Amazon carry the Tibetan Unicycle of the Dead?

… to be continued? …

Nah! Too corny!

  • Does Amazon carry the Tibetan Unicycle of the Dead?
    thanx sendhair, i’m still laughing
    :smiley:

BTW: has anyone here ever inherited a unicycle?

Does finding one set out for the trash count?

I inherited my first unicycle from my older brother (after he abandoned it). It is very close to dying, however. Just yesterday I was practicing hops and other freestyle moves on it and the cotter pin rounded off after about 5 minutes. Luckily, I have a Muni that I built a couple weeks ago so I was still able to practice.