Resales. I teach many young japanese english as a second language. Most of them don't speak any english. I refuse to speak japanese in class. Just start with picture cards, hand gestures, facial expressions, and etc.. Young kids catch on super quick. Japanese in general are shy. So don't be mislead, when they are shy. A greeting in the morning could be helpful. Try, "Ohaio" pronounced like the state 'Ohio'. this means 'good morning'. but for the most part, leave her alone. she might feel more uncomfortable with the spot-light on her.

Try to play shogi with her ;)

Please excuse my butting in to your conversation.

Your student is japanese? Have you thought about origami? I don't know how many students you see at a time, but maybe orgami might give her a bit of home, and for the other students something interesting to see and learn. :) A traditional crane is easy to do.

harley: thanks, but I just found out I only see her 20 minutes a WEEK (!) so it appears I'll be just a cog in the machine.

redsales: The most important thing would be facial expression. Lots of smiles and encouragement. Pictures would help a lot, as well as hand signals and acting out things.
Also finding her a buddy, someone her own age who can help her.
My son had a Turkish boy start in his class who couldn't speak a word of English. My lad was asked to stick to him like glue and help him as much as he can. The lad soon picked up the language, and they managed to communicate mostly through acting things out, and loads of patience from both of them.
Hope that helps a bit! Good luck :O)

this is a bit off topic, but in one of my kindies there is a new Japanese student who can't speak a word of Korean, English or any other language I know...can anyone here think of something I can say to her that would make her feel welcome in romanji? She seemed pretty confused, as Korea can seem barbaric (esp compared to Japan) to even those who know the language.

takodori: The first game came to a sennichite with 72 moves. Now another game exchanging first and second movers started. You can see and replay the game here at;
http://hobby.nikkei.co.jp/shogi/oza/live_sashinaoshi.cfm

You can see and replay the 1st game of Ouza title match between Ouza Habu and Kisei Sato here at;
http://hobby.nikkei.co.jp/shogi/oza/live.cfm
The challenger Sato is Sente(first mover) as a result of Furigoma(toss by throwing 5 pawns).

In dice chess I've never heard of a player getting extra throws when they're in check, normally they hope to get a thow that'll remove the check before the opponent gets the throw to capture the king, I've played games in which the king has been in check from three pieces at once and still escaped.

A little note about few types move.
When I make move my pown to last line it promote always, and program must promote pawn if I select it on prelast line. (P9b for black in Japanese and for white on it site :) next move will promote to P9a+ always).
Another pieces:
- Pawn and Lance if stay on line "b" in next move will poromote (1 times pressed), for white - line "h";
- Knight if stay on line "c" or line "d" in next move will promote too (1 times or 2 times pressed), for white lines "g" and "f".

2nd bug:
I select japanese type pieces (3 or 4 type). And when my piece must promote I see promoted piece type 1 (european type). It's not correct.

Another bugs I not see while, but you can see next:
- Pawn from "hand" cant give mate to King
- Lince and Pawn from "hand" cant put on line "a" for black and "i" - for white (in Japanese note)
- Knight from "hand" cant put on line "a" or "b" for black and "i" and "h" - for white (in Japanese note)
I hope that it correctly work.

ughaibu: 'Domo arigato'. But! This site conducts me in a dead lock

ughaibu: Domo arigato.

http://www.zexia.co.uk/shogi/assoc.html

ughaibu: just having the pieces is half the battle!

ughaibu: how would i get in contact with him?

George Hodges used to sell all the classical variants up to tai. Plastic pieces with roll-up vinyl boards. If that appeals, I imagine he still has some. He also produces sets of Kyoto, poppi, renge, etc, to order.

I have seen a real Taikyoku Shogi board and pieces. It's HUGE!! and playing it is really fun. But it takes a very long time to play. Tai shogi is a bit better, but again it takes a long time to finish. I may travel to Tendo city soon. This is the Shogi capital city. It is located in the northern part of Japan. I am going to see if i can get someone to make me a Tai Shogi board and pieces.

Translators may need to be careful here--in French, for example, the colors are not used at all (the first player is instead called South).

If you wish to get used to hieroglyphs on pieces shogi load and play with the program "Shogi Variants" (http://trout.customer.netspace.net.au/). Here many variants shogi with rules are presented. The program allows to see moves of the chosen piece or what fields are under attack of pieces (white and/or black).
It's very nice programm for 1st viewing shogi.
This link was in "Shogi variant" on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi_variant

Shogi of the seven kingdoms: http://www.vector.co.jp/games/soft/dl/win95/game/se165239.html

There is a description of this four-player shogi also at http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSyoninshogi

I have played it over the board with friends, and it is quite fun. George Hodges has a leaflet on the game.

There's a four player shogi variant highly recommended by it's enthusiasts. I thought it was played in teams of two but maybe not. Anyway, here's another stunningly waek computer opponent(s) to give you a feel for it: http://www.vector.co.jp/games/soft/dl/win95/game/se163968.html

If you're tinkering with things it would be nice to have the captured pieces in a more familiar, consistent and readable arrangement.

Wow, I am impressed, I didn't know Shogi variants could be that interesting and popular.
Anyway, I want to finish some pending things with the current Shogi model first (more graphics options, minor improvements of the interface) and then I'll add some variants, probably create an extra category for it (apart the normal Chess and its variants), just to keep it better organized.

Here's one for Kyoto shogi http://www.vector.co.jp/games/soft/dl/win95/game/se105554.html the computer plays pretty abyssmally.

There's a blue arrow pointing at "FM", further to the right of that is a little box which you click to download. After a while, when you make a move a box comes up saying you haven't paid, just click "ok" and it'll carry on. The program seems to have some extra pieces generated from who knows where.

For an idea of how kingyonofun shogi works there's a free download at http://www.vector.co.jp/games/soft/dl/win95/game/se170735.html

Is shogi the most attractive game among the chesslike games? If you interested in this topic,
please see the following;
http://www.shogi.net/shogi-l/Archive/1999/Nfeb07-06.txt

i've heard Kyoto is responsible for some modern champions' background and depth in conventional shogi, some have said it was an excellent way to prepare.

Thanks for all valuable suggestions. I'll implement some of the proposed variants when I am finished with other things.

I prefer the historical predecessor of modern shogi, sho shogi, that has no drops and the drunken elephant that promotes to a crown prince.

Here is a link to a page on Tori Shogi:
http://www.shogi.net/rjhare/tori-shogi/tori-intro.html

I would like to recommend Tori Shogi. It plays pretty quickly and is a lot of fun.

I vote for Chu Shogi :)

Fencer: Tai Shogi will make Anti-Backgammon look like a quick game. But Tai Shogi is still smaller than Taikyoku Shogi, played with 402 pieces each (208 different pieces), on a 36x36 board. The piece names of Taikyoku Shogi sound impressive: Drunk Elephant, Soaring Eagle, Burning General, Great Dragon, Heavenly Tetarch King, Swooping Owl, Old Monkey, Flying Cock, Phoenix Master, etc, etc.

There's a Perl module available with the initial setup and movement of the pieces.

playBunny: <tt> is HTML for 'teletype', a way of indicating something is computer input or output. It's typically rendered in a fixed width font. But it seems <tt> isn't in a short list of allowable HTML elements we can use here.

Fencer: Shog variants page on Wikipedia.

Okay, I clicked your link. There is a bigger variant taikyoku shogi on a 36x36 board. I dont know if anyone plays these. Chuu shogi on a 12x12 board is quite popular in Europe.

ughaibu: Yes, 25x25. Looks weird to me.

By tai shogi do you mean on a 25x25 board?

Kyoto shogi is an excellent game, a weirder variant is renge shogi, a kind of 7x7 version of Kyoto shogi but all the captured pieces are available to both players except that a player can only checkmate with a drop if using a piece captured by him/herself. Tori shogi is an interesting 7x7 variant from the 18th century but requires different pieces. Using the normal board and pieces, annan shogi in which pieces take on the movements of any piece on the adjoining square behind them and kingyounofun shogi in which pieces drag adjoining pieces behind them, are both fun and interesting.
Fencer: if you want detailed rules for any of these please message me.

What about Tai Shogi, anybody has a real experience with it?

Maybe Kyoto Shogi? It has some funny/remarkable changes from Shogi:
"In kyoto, there is no promotion: at the conclusion of every move the piece that moved must be reversed."
It is also played on 5x5, but with 2x5 pieces. Here is the site: http://www.drjochum.de/ (click on the link)
I haven't played it, I leave it to the expert Shogi players to judge :) but looks fun to me.

I found some larger Shogi Variants but to me they look to slow for a turn-based site.

Fencer: Anti-Shogi, Extinguish Shogi, ???-Relay Shogi, Atomic Shogi, Cylinder Shogi, ... <tt>;-)</tt>

Fencer: My favorite is Minishogi. I play it quite often with Zillions-of-Games.

Could somebody recommend a good Shogi variant which would be worth implementing?

Uh-huh.

Fencer: Another example there:

http://gamelab.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/SHOGI/kifumain.html


The main thing are the signs characters. The pentagonal shapes are nice but secondary, because the orientation of the characters shows the owners.
The above example is exactly what I think about.

[Edited by playBunny to make the link work. it gives a list of recorded matches. Then click any of the Java links to see the board and play through the game.]

Spirou: Do you mean just the Japanese characters without surrounding pentagonal shapes?

Fencer: Because the majority or at least many of the shogi web sites and books are using ... (I don't know the technical name) 'simplified' Japanese pieces, would you be so kind as to propose also this kind of pieces, please?
A clear and superb example is displayed in (you have to scroll down) : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C3%B4gi so you can watch the signs I write for.
I hope I am not trying to abuse of your amiability but it could be, again, a real improvement.