Rakuten Kobo Touch Questions

[keynya]

Hi

I am a long time reader, but first time poster. Up until now I did not have to write anything into this forum because I found all my questions answered already in some other threads. So in other words, this forum is really impressive.
I am going to Tokyo next week and thinking about buying a Kobo Touch from Rakuten. The goal is to read Japanese ebooks and thus improve my language skills. As far as I have understood the Kobo Touch is the best option for that. Also I don't want to wait for a possible start of a Japanese version of the Kindle.
As far as I have seen there are quite a few people in this forum who own a Japanese Kobo Touch. I would be very happy if they could answer some questions regarding the Japanese Kobo Touch. (I tried to find answers by reading through the forum and I even used google )


1) As my Japanese is far from good I would need a proper dictionary. I heard the implementation of the dictionary is not really good and there is a huge chance that the wrong word gets looked up. Regarding that problem has the software been improved in the last weeks? Or is it not as bad as the first reviewers claimed it to be?

2) Is it a J->J dictionary only? Or does the Kobo also have a J->E or even E->J dictionary? And what other dictionaries are present in the Japanese version?

3) Do these dictionaries also work with side loaded books. Because I want to use calibre as my library software.

4) For the activation one needs a Windows PC, is this correct? How about after activation? I do not use Windows in my daily life.

5) How about the format of the Japanese books you buy at Rakuten. Are they in proper epub3 format, are they pdf's or something else?

6) As far as I have seen it should be possible to buy Japanese books from abroad as long as you can log-in to the Kobo shop from a Japanese IP-adress. Does one need a Japanese credit card or is any credit card working? See: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=185795


Thanks for taking your time answering the questions. And if they have been answered anywhere else I would be happy if you could point me to the thread.


Keynya

[tshering]

I do not own a Japanese Kobo Touch. But I do not think that there is a remarkable difference between non-Japanese Kobo Touch and the Rakuten-Kobo Touch. I have installed software version 2.1.1.

1) Selecting text seems to be better now. Or did my skills improve? The response of the dictionary is however still not optimal. For instance, I select "面会". The pop up window says:

Your search for "面会" did not match any words in the dictionary. The closest match was "[めんかい] 面会".

If I then click "Definition" the correct dictionary entry (J>J) is displayed.

2) There is still only J>J. 2.1.1 has the same dictionaries as 2.0.0.

English > English
Français > Français
Nihongo > Nihongo
Deutsch > Deutsch

English > Français
English > Italiano
English > Deutsch
English > Español
English > Portuguêse

Français > English
Italiano > English
Deutsch > English
Español > English
Portuguêse > English

3) Yes, it does work with side-loaded books. Actually, I have only side-loaded Japanese books. So all I said might be correct only with regard to such books.

[Mrs_Often]

4) No, for activation you need the Kobo desktop software, which is also available for Mac OS X. But if you will only be using Calibre, you don't necessarily have to activate your Kobo I don't think.

6) Hmm, I'm not sure if you even need to have a Japanese IP address... From The Netherlands I can only. Rowsw Dutch books (stupid, stupid system!), but I can search and buy English and German books as well. So if you know what book you're looking for a search should be enough even with an IP address from outside of Japan. As for the credit card, I'm not sure. You should be able to use any I'd say, and otherwise PayPal also works...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

4) No, for activation you need the Kobo desktop software, which is also available for Mac OS X. But if you will only be using Calibre, you don't necessarily have to activate your Kobo I don't think.

There is some instructions here for adding an entry to the Touch's database to fake the activation. But, if you want to buy kepubs from the Kobo shop, it has to be activated properly.

6) Hmm, I'm not sure if you even need to have a Japanese IP address... From The Netherlands I can only. Rowsw Dutch books (stupid, stupid system!), but I can search and buy English and German books as well. So if you know what book you're looking for a search should be enough even with an IP address from outside of Japan. As for the credit card, I'm not sure. You should be able to use any I'd say, and otherwise PayPal also works...

There has been some discussion about the IP address here. I am pretty sure the Japanese IP was needed. Or I might have it mixed up with someone in Japan who wanted to buy from the non-Japanese shop.

[keynya]

Thanks for all the answers.

I was not aware, that there seems to be no difference between the Japanese localisation of the Kobo touch and the "normal" version.
Then it might be easier to get one here (Switzerland).

To bad about the non existing J->E dictionary, but that was expected.

Thanks again.

[Cdesja5]

Check this thread, several of the questions you ask are answered and were tried out by users outside of Japan...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=185795