This is fairly common for machines in Japan. This machine types in katakana (lower case) and latin (upper case). Katakana can be used for the entire Japanese language, but awkwardly. So it is better used in instances where foreign words predominate -- trade, science, medicine.
Thank you Mr Anonymous. Could you please help me to find such a machine on the internet? I really want to buy one. I tried to find it on ebay Japan but of no avail. obviously I don't speak Japanese, hehe...
I've seen 1 or 2 of these come up on the Japanese Yahoo auction site, but not recently. http://category.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/ While the typewriters on this site might be fairly cheap, the postage from Japan using the BUYEE service isn't!
A useful search string... アンティーク タイプライター (antique typewriter)
Wow! I can see how that would be useful. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteMy (Japanese) wife tells me they could have been useful for sending telegrams, since only katakana characters were used.
ReplyDeleteThis is fairly common for machines in Japan. This machine types in katakana (lower case) and latin (upper case). Katakana can be used for the entire Japanese language, but awkwardly. So it is better used in instances where foreign words predominate -- trade, science, medicine.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mr Anonymous. Could you please help me to find such a machine on the internet? I really want to buy one. I tried to find it on ebay Japan but of no avail. obviously I don't speak Japanese, hehe...
DeleteI've seen 1 or 2 of these come up on the Japanese Yahoo auction site, but not recently. http://category.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/
DeleteWhile the typewriters on this site might be fairly cheap, the postage from Japan using the BUYEE service isn't!
A useful search string...
アンティーク タイプライター
(antique typewriter)
thank you elephant!
DeleteVery interesting. My daughter is studying Japanese and needs one of these!
ReplyDeleteInteresting indeed. I learned a new thing from this post and the informative comments.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've seen many bilingual typewriters, if any! That is super cool. I would love to have one with Roman and Cyrillic alphabets...
ReplyDelete