JGlossator

Contents

• Overview
• Download
• Installation
• Screenshots
• Blacklist
• Word Frequencies
• Abbreviations
• Pitch Accents

Overview

You may use JGlossator to create a gloss for Japanese text complete with de-inflected expressions, readings, audio pronunciation, example sentences, pitch accent, word frequency, kanji information, and grammar analysis.

JGlossator will automatically gloss any Japanese text that you copy to the clipboard. Setting aside more obvious usage, this makes it ideal for use with Capture2Text when reading manga or with AGTH/ITH when either playing visual novels or watching video with Japanese subtitles.

By right-clicking on a glossed entry you will be presented with a menu that allows you to view alternate entries, save the current entry to file, or listen to an audio pronunciation. You may hover over a Japanese word to see a Rikaichan-style popup.

JGlossator is highly configurable and allows you to modify many of the default behaviors and settings. For example, you can turn off the clipboard monitor, change themes, specify a new save format, remove pitch accent, etc. Just press the options button on the far right.

Type in an English word to search definitions instead. The resulting list will be sorted based on frequency. To search whole words only, add "w/" in front of the word. To use a regular expression, type "r/" followed by a regular expression.

Kanji search is supported as well. Just use one of these formats:

You can also perform a gloss using your favorite EPWING dictionaries. Just add them to the Dictionary Setup tab of the Options dialog.

Know basic HTML/CSS? Want to change a font, color, or maybe even the format of the kanji gloss? No problem, just create a new theme in the themes directory or modify an existing one.

Some useful shortcut keys:

Download

The latest version may be found on the JGlossator download page hosted by SourceForge. The source code is also available at this link.

Installation

1. Make sure that you have .Net Framework Version 3.5 installed (you probably already do). If not, you can get it through Windows update or via the Microsoft website
2. Unzip JGlossator. Make sure that there are no non-ASCII (ex. Japanese) characters in the JGlossator path. Also don't place JGlossator in Program Files due to write permission issues.
3. In the unzipped directory, simply double-click JGlossator.exe to launch JGlossator.

Screenshots

• The main interface (showing two of the themes available):
  
  
• The main interface (annotated):
  
  
• Right-click menu for an entry (annotated):
  
  
  
• Rikaichan-style popup when hovering over Japanese words:
  
  
• Configuration button menu (annotated):
  
  
• Kanji Info dialog (click a kanji in the Kanji pane to display):
  
  
• Grammar pane (annotated) (To enable: Options -> Appearance -> Show the grammar pane):
  
  
• Definition search. If the search text contains only English, the EDICT definitions will be searched instead of performing the normal gloss. Entries will be sorted by frequency. To search for whole words only, add "w/" in front or add a trailing space (example: "w/experiment" or "experiment "). To perform a regular expression search, add "r/" in front (example: "r/exp\w*?l"). Screenshot:
  
  
• Kanji search. In this screenshot we search for all kanji containing the primitives "person" and "ten". The kanji are sorted based on number of strokes and then by frequency.
  
  
• Dictionary Setup tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Example Setup tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Appearance tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Gloss 1 tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Gloss 2 tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Grammar tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Save tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Audio tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Popup tab from the Options dialog:
  
  
• Advanced tab from the Options dialog:
  
  

Blacklist

You may add the dictionary form of words that you would rather not see appear in the gloss to blacklist.txt (in the same directory as JGlossator.exe).

Word Frequencies

Abbreviations

Pitch Accents

1. If the accent is on the first mora, then the pitch starts high, drops suddenly on the second mora, then levels out. The pitch may fall across both moras, or mostly on one or the other (depending on the sequence of sounds)—that is, the first mora may end with a high falling pitch, or the second may begin with a (low) falling pitch, but a native speaker will hear the first mora as accented regardless.
2. If the accent is on a mora other than the first or the last, then the pitch has an initial rise from a low starting point, reaches a near-maximum at the accented mora, then drops suddenly on the next.
3. If the word doesn't have an accent, the pitch rises from a low starting point on the first mora or two, and then levels out in the middle of the speaker's range, without ever reaching the high tone of an accented mora. Japanese describe the sound as "flat" (平板 heiban) or "accentless".

1. If the accent is on the first mora, then the first syllable is high-pitched and the others are low: H*L, H*L-L, H*L-L-L, H*L-L-L-L, etc.
2. If the accent is on a mora other than the first, then the first mora is low, the following moras up to and including the accented one are high, and the rest are low: L-H, L-H*L, L-H-H*L, L-H-H-H*L, etc.
3. If the word is heiban (doesn't have an accent), the first mora is low and the others are high: L-H, L-H-H, L-H-H-H, L-H-H-H-H, etc. This high pitch spreads to unaccented grammatical particles that attach to the end of the word, whereas these would have a low pitch when attached to an accented word. Although only the terms "high" and "low" are used, the high of an unaccented mora is not as high as an accented mora.