Kobo for studying Japanese

[spacepope]

Hey guys!

I have a Kobo Libra H2O and I love it. However, I have had significant problems sideloading Japanese books and would like to just have a e-reader dedicated to reading Japanese books on, buying from the Rakuten store.

I'm open to models old and new. My #1 priority is a snappy lookup/dictionary... and not breaking my wallet. I would want 7in screen or less.

My research so far:

• If I buy new, I can get 4000 yen off the model as I have a lot of points
• A Secondhand Libra H2O + case goes for 18,000 yen (10,000 yen off base price)
• A Secondhand Clara HD goes for 11,000 yen (4,000 off base price)
• A Secondhand Nia/Aura/Glo goes for about 9000 yen
• A Secondhand Mini goes for 4000 yen
• Kobo Touch's are a dime a dozen, about 2000 yen

I would imagine, just for lookup speed, a newer model would be better. But not sure how new it would have to be.

Would love any advice from any Japanese language students/readers.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by spacepope

Hey guys!

I have a Kobo Libra H2O and I love it. However, I have had significant problems sideloading Japanese books and would like to just have a e-reader dedicated to reading Japanese books on, buying from the Rakuten store.

I'm open to models old and new. My #1 priority is a snappy lookup/dictionary... and not breaking my wallet. I would want 7in screen or less.

My research so far:

• If I buy new, I can get 4000 yen off the model as I have a lot of points
• A Secondhand Libra H2O + case goes for 18,000 yen (10,000 yen off base price)
• A Secondhand Clara HD goes for 11,000 yen (4,000 off base price)
• A Secondhand Nia/Aura/Glo goes for about 9000 yen
• A Secondhand Mini goes for 4000 yen
• Kobo Touch's are a dime a dozen, about 2000 yen

I would imagine, just for lookup speed, a newer model would be better. But not sure how new it would have to be.

Would love any advice from any Japanese language students/readers.

Are you sideloading books as ePubs or Kepubs? Only Kepubs will do vertical Japanese books correctly.

Personally I found reading Japanese books is somewhat ironically a better experience on Kindle than Kobo (For English I like Kobo over Amazon). Dictionary lookup I found was better on my PW3 as it actually selected the word most of the time and not a single character and it had a Japanese-English dictionary built in that could do verb deconjugation. Perhaps that's changed as it's been a few years since I used either. Right now I mainly just use the Kindle app on an Android eReader. It's not the best for dictionary lookup but I like having access to all my books on one device.

I would recommend a device with 200-300PPI just because it makes text much sharper which I think is nice for particularly complex kanji. There isn't really massive speed differences between these models as a number of them share the same SoC with the same amount of RAM and CPU. The Clara HD and Libra H2O use the same CPU and have the same amount of RAM. I'd probably get a Clara HD out of these as it seems like the best value, same CPU as Libra and 300PPI screen.

I think the touch and mini are just too old these days.

[spacepope]

I'm sideloading kepubs, after ripping the books from my amazon account. It just never formats correctly, with ruby getting cut off. I'm frankly tired of it.

I also would love a dedicated device just for reading Japanese books, so I can kind of keep myself in two mindsets. This reader for English, the other one for JP. Even if I wanted one device for it all, I'm sad to say that Japanese books are the only thing you can't get through your standard Kobo account. The Rakuten Japan store doesn't play with the global market, and I get a lot of angry errors when I try to "merge" the accounts. So a 2nd device is the best option it seems.

I do have a kindle, and I read Japanese on it occasionally, but it's a bit chunky for me. I do agree dictionary lookup is better, but I only use the J-J dictionary nowadays, so I don't mind not having a J-E one.

I was not aware the Clara HD had the same chip as the Libra, so I think I might go with that! I think that cinches it, thank you

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by spacepope

I'm sideloading kepubs, after ripping the books from my amazon account. It just never formats correctly, with ruby getting cut off. I'm frankly tired of it.

I also would love a dedicated device just for reading Japanese books, so I can kind of keep myself in two mindsets. This reader for English, the other one for JP. Even if I wanted one device for it all, I'm sad to say that Japanese books are the only thing you can't get through your standard Kobo account. The Rakuten Japan store doesn't play with the global market, and I get a lot of angry errors when I try to "merge" the accounts. So a 2nd device is the best option it seems.

I do have a kindle, and I read Japanese on it occasionally, but it's a bit chunky for me. I do agree dictionary lookup is better, but I only use the J-J dictionary nowadays, so I don't mind not having a J-E one.

I was not aware the Clara HD had the same chip as the Libra, so I think I might go with that! I think that cinches it, thank you

Cool! Yeah, part of why I went with an Android reader is that I could clone the Kindle/Kobo accounts and have one for my Japanese stuff and one for my English stuff. Kind of pain that I have to do that though.

I don't remember dealing with cutoff ruby, but I always used KindleUnpack to get ePubs from my AZW3s rather than converting them.

[spacepope]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

Cool! Yeah, part of why I went with an Android reader is that I could clone the Kindle/Kobo accounts and have one for my Japanese stuff and one for my English stuff. Kind of pain that I have to do that though.

Can I ask, for your android reader - which do you use and how did you load dictionaries? I had an Onyx Boox for a very brief period of time, and while I enjoyed some features (the TTS was the bomb, easily my favorite feature), I was really really annoyed that they didn't have any dictionaries loaded. I could not, for the life of me, find a compatible dictionary there are no really good STARDICT Japanese dictionaries it seems.

I'm definitely open to an android e-reader, namely because I would kill to be able to do anki flashcards on my ereader. Kobo nor Kindle will run ankiweb in the web browser.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by spacepope

Can I ask, for your android reader - which do you use and how did you load dictionaries? I had an Onyx Boox for a very brief period of time, and while I enjoyed some features (the TTS was the bomb, easily my favorite feature), I was really really annoyed that they didn't have any dictionaries loaded. I could not, for the life of me, find a compatible dictionary there are no really good STARDICT Japanese dictionaries it seems.

I'm definitely open to an android e-reader, namely because I would kill to be able to do anki flashcards on my ereader. Kobo nor Kindle will run ankiweb in the web browser.

I have a Boox Nova 2. I typically just use the dictionary built in to whatever app I'm using (Kindle, Kobo, Cocoro). Cocoro is probably the best at dictionary lookup but it only works with dictionaries I bought from Cocoro and they don't like foreign credit cards so buying from them is a giant pain. You also can't remove DRM from their books. I only bought from them because I had a Sharp denshi jisho I stupidly got rid of.

I didn't have much luck getting a STARDICT Japanese dictionary working well either. I also have the Kenkyusha New JE/EJ dictionary on there though I have to pop out of the app to use it. Sometimes I'll use my DS and Kanji sonomama rakubiki jiten, particularly if it's manga.