Strange text

[Dun]

Konnichiwa mina-san!

I posted a penpal ad on japan-guide the other day, and I've got many nice posts from Japanese females (that's not the problem :D). The problem is that I recieved a post which was partially written in English and partially in some strange language which I don't recognize (but it looks like Chinese to me). I'll paste a small part of the message below:

ﾅｽ窶樞堙娯ｰpﾅ津ｪ窶堙・A窶堋ｱ窶堋ｱ窶堙懌堙・堋ｵ窶堋 ｩ窶堙・堋ｫ窶堙懌堋ｹ窶堙ｱ B 窶・

Now I was wondering, is this Japanese at all? My translator program (jap-eng) doesn't recognize it either. Or could it be an issue with character codings or something similar to that? Please share your views with me.

[PaulTB]

Or could it be an issue with character codings or something similar to that? Please share your views with me.
Definately character coding.

You say 'post' do you mean email? If you do mean email what encodings did you try to view it with? And with what email program?

If you have Outlook Express then you should try
Japanese (Auto-select)
Japanese (Shift-JIS)
Japanese (EUC)
Unicode (UTF-7)
Unicode (UTF-8)

If you have something other than Outlook Express then also try
Japanese (JIS).

(Actual text within ('s may vary)

If none of those work come back to us.

[Dun]

Wow that was fast.

I'm using a web mail my school offers me, but previously all Japanese emails have shown up correctly. In my web browser (firefox) I have tried EUC-JP, ISO-2022-JP, SHIFT_JIS and UTF-8. With SHIFT_JIS I could see the text I wrote about earlier, with the other coding types it showed nothing but mambo-jambo. Any other suggestions?

[PaulTB]

Wow that was fast.

I'm using a web mail my school offers me, but previously all Japanese emails have shown up correctly.
Ah, but what encoding did they use?
In my web browser (firefox) I have tried EUC-JP, ISO-2022-JP, SHIFT_JIS and UTF-8.
No UTF-7 on that list. (ISO-2022-JP is the official name for JIS so that's covered).
With SHIFT_JIS I could see the text I wrote about earlier, with the other coding types it showed nothing but mambo-jambo. Any other suggestions?
My guess is that the web mail has chewed it up, spat it out and jumped on it repeatedly. If this is one of those systems where you can get it as web mail or as normal email it you might be able to salvage it - otherwise I suspect it's gone, kaput, finito. Ask the poster to send it again to a proper email address :relief:

[Dun]

...otherwise I suspect it's gone, kaput, finito.

Yeah I thought so too. Don't you just love computers :)

I tried UTF-7 too, didn't work. And the web mails instructions say:

If you are experiencing problems with correct character display in GroupWise® WebAccess, you should verify that your browser's language and character-set encoding are configured properly.

I guess the problem relates to my browser somehow but I just don't know how. As I mentioned on my previous post, I've never had these kind of problems before.

[PaulTB]

I guess the problem relates to my browser somehow but I just don't know how.
I doubt it. It's more likely that the web mail service itself has done the mangling.
As I mentioned on my previous post, I've never had these kind of problems before.
As I mentioned before - what encoding did they use? Webmail systems often work well with some encodings but not others. If your web mail service has an option to 'view source' or 'see in original format' or 'view headers' you should try that. However a cheapo school service probably won't have anything that useful.

Incidently Hotmail is relatively reliable. (On some rare occasions it helps to set your default language to Japanese).

[Dun]

Found out the reason why the emails were scrambled: everybody who wanted to contact me had to send their emails through the japan-guide server. Only after I replied to them they saw my email address and were able to write directly to me.

A small sidequestion, what does this mean:

奈々恵より

[PaulTB]

A small sidequestion, what does this mean:

奈々恵より

It's her name. :p
奈々恵 【ななえ】 Nanae (g)

[Dun]

It's her name. :p
奈々恵 【ななえ】 Nanae (g)

Thanks PaulTB :D