Messaging

[MikeM]

what do people in Japan use to talk out of school and stuff? We know that the big thing in America and the UK is AOL Instant Messenger... but do they have something similar in Japan or is it just e-mail?

just wondering since a friend asked me. thanks.

-mike

[Mike Cash]

e-mail via cell phone.

[Ewok85]

One girl in my class did an easy 100 messages a night, hellish mobile phone bills.

MSN messenger gets some sporadic use as well as Yahoo messenger.

[PopCulturePooka]

e-mail via cell phone.
Its a friggin plauge of EVIL the ketai e-mail is!

[SajberJohan]

Is this "ketai e-mail" for free like regular e-mail or is it like sending SMS ?

[Mike Cash]

The sender pays to send, but the receiver can usually receive it for free, up to a certain number of characters. More than that, and they pay to receive the mail. I have no idea what SMS is, so I can't answer that.

[PopCulturePooka]

Short Message Service. Used in Europe and Australia and costs about the equivalent of 15 - 20yen per message.

Basically like Vodafones skymail.

[Mike Cash]

Except that Skymail is about 5 yen!

[Ewok85]

Skymail is a ripoff :P Get a better plan and pay sub 1yen for mail :D

Pooka, and the rest. SMS is 25c to people on your carrier, its closer to 50c (35-40 yen) to other carrier (Vodafone->Virgin etc)

[PopCulturePooka]

Ouch, no wonder my cousin was working two jobs.
One jobs pay went exclusively to her phone bill.

[Mike Cash]

I hear guys at work talking about how reasonable their keitai bill is....only 30 or 40 thousand yen per month.

I don't use Skymail because I have found the delivery to be unreliable. Sometimes the stuff doesn't get where it's going for several hours. Sometimes the next day.

[PopCulturePooka]

I hear guys at work talking about how reasonable their keitai bill is....only 30 or 40 thousand yen per month.

I don't use Skymail because I have found the delivery to be unreliable. Sometimes the stuff doesn't get where it's going for several hours. Sometimes the next day.
I have the same problem with receiving docomo mail

[SajberJohan]

So thats like what 200$ just for sending mail every month!?! O_O

[Mike Cash]

More like $300-$400, including the incessant yakking that is so common in Japan.

These days it is hard to spot a person who doesn't have a keitai pressed to the ear or their eyes glued to a keitai screen.....regardless of time. location. or situation.

[cicatriz esp]

Every Japanese person i've known in real life had never seen a computer IM program before I showed them one. They in turn had to teach me how to send text messages via cell phone, which i still can't seem to get down. I can read them just find, sending is another story.

As for the people i've only met via the web, MSN seems to be the one to go with.

[BamaFan2989]

Is there a special way to see these people in chats on Yahoo and MSN? I know there was somewhere where someone said that they get on like midnight in the states. Just wondering....

[MeAndroo]

Thank god for the AU student discounts. I wouldn't get to 100 a day, but I'd hit 50 on occasion, and we sent a ton of pictures, which you have to use email for, as opposed to the cheaper AU->AU c-mail. I archived most of the funnier mails, and bust out my old keitai once in awhile just to reminisce. Makes me realize how much Japanese I've forgotten. :p

I guess having the 50 minute/month talking plan isn't conducive to major conversations. At least they round to the second.

[TwistedMac]

SMS'ing (or "texting" as they say in britland) is huge in sweden.. I do it, but I try to keep away from teh retarded messages...

with 100msgs /day you've GOT to have a large load of retarded messages!

(with retarded msgs I'm talking about the "Hi! what are you doing?" ones... you wanna know what I'm doing? CALL ME AND ASK! SMS-chatting is just too d*mn expensive.)

for some reason I manage to hit 33 messages on about 1/2 of my bills (I'm billed once every month)... I'm not counting or anything.. pretty weird... But at one point I hit 150 msgs in a month and i was appauled...

[BamaFan2989]

what is keitai?

[TwistedMac]

mobile phone

[Glenn]

Here ya go (http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/search.php?MT=%A4%B1%A4%A4%A4%BF%A4%A4&kind=ej&je.x=40&je.y=17). Usually it's an abbreviation for 携帯電話（けいたいでんわ）, which means "mobile phone," and I believe it's usually written ケータイ in such situations.

ケータイ


携帯電話の俗称。
〔1990 年代後半の若者語が一般化した〕

Rough translation: "common name for mobile phone. [made normal by the speech of young people in the latter half of the 1990s]"

[Ewok85]

100 messages a day would be "so can you help me with this bit of homework?" "yeah" "what you doing saturday?" "whats this mean" for me :P

I aus my SMS'ing is down to "meet you at 3" and only 5 a week at best

[blu_pengwin]

LoL wow u guys use alot

I use mebe ten a week...then again I live in the US :?