[Athen] Japanese Language Course accessibility

[Jeffrey Dell]

For the materials What we did was we ran OCR on the textbook to get
the basic text.  We purchased an Eastern Asian version of Iris for
recognizing Japanese but we ended up not using it.  We grabbed the
English text and then had a student who was from Japan type in the
Japanese characters.  You can setup the computer to recognize romanji
and convert it to Hiragana or Katakana.  There is also an IME
selection tool for inputing Kanji.  I think I spelled those right.
You may need help from your Japanese instructor to understand the
language better.  It is nothing like English.
Beginning language textbooks are complex in the way that they use
tables and switch languages on a dime.  You are better off using
formats for materials which you can set language on a character by
character basis like Word.
Some Japanese courses use Romanji which is a romanized character set
for the japanese words.  It is easier for students to learn and read.
Some programs use the actual character sets for Japanese characters
and have a strong writing component for learning the words.  For this
the student would either need to use tactile graphics or use the
keyboard to type the words.  They can also use Tenji which is a
Japanese  character set for Braille.  I am attaching the tables I
created for the Hiragana chacters for the language for if your student
uses Braille.  They have the Hiragana character, english in print,
English Braille, and Tenji Braille in the table.  You need to have the
Duxbury Braille font to see the Braille correctly.
VoiceOver also has a Braille table for Japanese.  I have not tried it.
My student was using the Japanese localization of JAWS on PC at that
time.
I was just using VoiceOver on my phone to read characters off of my
phone.  I don't know enough of Japanese myself to tell you if it was
reading words correctly but it was reading the Hiragana characters
correctly.  The student will likely need to turn down the speech rate
for Japanese because it reads the syllables so fast that it is
unintelligible at the speech rates we use for English.
You can also add keyboards for Japanese to your list of keyboards.  I
just used this and it auto switched languages to read the characters
on the keyboard.  This also would need to be tested more thoroughly
with the Japanese instructor.  The student I worked with had to type
some Kanji, which are whole words in one character.  For this they
would need to start typing the word using Romanji and Hiragana and
then select the Kanji character.  There are many homophones and I am
not sure if it gives the correct contextual details for selecting the
character in iOS.  In Windows when using the IME character selection
with the Japanese Localization of JAWS it gave additional context so
you would know you are selecting the correct character.
It is very complex but can be a lot of fun to work with the student on
how they will take this class.  There are also plenty of opportunities
to get creative with the accommodations for a class like that.
Hopefully that is helpful in getting you started.
Best regards,
Jeff
On 5/24/22, Jeffrey Dell <jeffreydell99 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Did intro to Japanese courses for a student around 11 or 12 years ago. You

> can probably find postings about it in the Athan archive. I can send you

> some more information about it when I get in the office tomorrow.

> Jeff

>

> Sent from my iPhone.  please excuse errors from using Apple's dictation

> feature.

>

>> On May 24, 2022, at 8:49 PM, Sean Loraas <sloraas at austincc.edu> wrote:

>>

>> 

>> Greetings Colleagues,

>> I'm in need of some of your knowledge and expertise in providing

>> accessible materials (Screen reader accessible) for a student in a

>> beginning Japanese course. Does anyone have experience remediating mixed

>> English/Japanese language material for screen reader access (student

>> prefers using VO on an iPhone)?  Much of the Japanese content is image

>> based and not proper Japanese characters. If anyone is aware of document

>> remediation services that can produce mixed language English/Japanese

>> documents in screen reader accessible formats, I'd be grateful. Or if

>> anyone has experience remediating such materials, that could provide some

>> guidance for workflows, that would be very helpful. Thank you all in

>> advance for your help. Stay safe! Respectfully, Sean Loraas (EOM. The rest

>> is signature/quote.)

>>

>> Sean Loraas (he/his/him)

>> Accessibility Technician

>> Alternative Text and Media

>> Student Affairs

>> Eastview Campus

>> Office: 2140

>> Email: sloraas at austincc.edu

>>

>> “The Mind is Everything.

>> What You Think, You Become.” – Siddhartha Gautama

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> athen-list mailing list

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>

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