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Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

nihongo-app.com

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Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#41

Post by Blahah »

chrisvasselli wrote: post #38
Blahah wrote: post #33

OP, this is wonderful. I'm a long time japanese learner and I wrote the iOS Anki app. Just looking through the website (unfortunately I don't have an iOS device on hand), you've got some killer features here that I've wanted for a long time. 'clippings' looks really excellent. I would go so far as to say this is a game-changer for me as it currently stands. If you took the same idea and went bigger, that would be awe…

I would LOVE to have integration with e-books, I think that could totally change the way I learn Japanese. Since over time the app learns what words you know and what words you don't, it could even suggest books for you that are around the right difficulty level. Wouldn't that be amazing? Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any place where you can purchase DRM-free e-books, so I think this would require workin…

Aozora Bunko (http://www.aozora.gr.jp/) is the only legitimate source I know of for ebooks (and they are free). Long term it would be really great to get some Japanese publishers to commit to ebooks, but I know that historically they have been strongly, publicly resistant.

The Wakaru app does allow ebooks reading with a dictionary, but I always found it clunky and I don't think it allows easily generating cards from a book, the dictionary was less useful than yours looks, and it doesn't learn your vocab over time.

For audiovisual context, I'm really thinking of:

  - images to match vocab items (potentially auto-sourced from a Creative Commons licensed image search engine)
  - images from articles to match sentences from articles
  - sound clips to match text taken from audio captions
  - video clips OR audio clips + screenshots to match sentences from video subtitles
Regarding image rights, I would say that there is a huge amount of stuff in the public domain or liberally licensed (e.g. on Mediawiki). But you could also allow the user to add their own images, where they take responsibility for making sure they have the rights.

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#42

Post by Blahah »

Albright wrote: post #40
Blahah wrote: post #33

OP, this is wonderful. I'm a long time japanese learner and I wrote the iOS Anki app. Just looking through the website (unfortunately I don't have an iOS device on hand), you've got some killer features here that I've wanted for a long time. 'clippings' looks really excellent. I would go so far as to say this is a game-changer for me as it currently stands. If you took the same idea and went bigger, that would be awe…

> 'clippings' looks really excellent. I would go so far as to say this is a game-changer for me as it currently stands. Midori, my personal favorite iOS J/E dictionary, has had a feature like this since I started using it, so for at least five years or so. =/ See the "Text Translation" section: http://www.midoriapp.com/features/

So it does, and it looks nicely executed too. Wish I'd found it back when I had an iOS device.

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#43

Post by veidr »

chrisvasselli wrote: post #31
hkmurakami wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native speaker of both Japanese and English here. This looks quite nice and I've forwarded it to my friends who are learning Japanese. :) I was initially really skeptical when I saw the tagline about "learning from songs and games", because songs are grammatically broken and often nonsensical, while games/anime/manga often have brash speech that you stop using once you're past Junior High. But being able to learn off…

Yeah, it's hard to sum up the idea in 80 characters, but I like that idea of learning off of your interests . Thanks!

I work in Tokyo and speak okay Japanese, but sort of hit a plateau after college (partly due to knowing 'enough for daily life' and partly due to having to work and no longer having to go to Japanese class).

So my study lists consist 100% of words and phrases I hear and don't understand when I am out at the Japanese semi-mandatory drinking-with-coworkers. I currently use Japanese.app, but am open to switching since it doesn't sync vocab lists hint hint :-).

So I study off my actual experiences here in Japan. I too was instinctively skeptical of the "games, songs" bit. (Although, I notice that text is not actually on the website.) I think "learning off your interests" is better, too.

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#44

Post by veidr »

chrisvasselli wrote: post #28
veidr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Chris, looks like an awesome start. Some quick suggestions and questions: 1. You should fully support romaji entry for looking things up. The mechanics of switching input methods on iOS are pretty terrible so it is really inconvenient to have to switch into Japanese input mode. I searched for "hana" but got only 花合わせ and 花を引く as matches -- because those have 'hana' in the English definition string. Searching for は…

Thanks for the feedback! 1. I actually just finished implementing romaji entry, and it will be coming in the next version update. Honestly, after implementing it, I can't believe how much time I've wasted switching input methods. =) 2. Thanks! 3. I know, I know! I really want to, but I spent a couple weeks diving into it and found it really buggy and hard to get right. I'm using Core Data under the hood to store this…

> 1. I actually just finished implementing romaji entry

Great! I didn't see a need to put it this bluntly in my initial comment, but having to manually switch input methods is enough of a deal-breaker for me that I was going to uninstall the app... but now I will leave it installed and wait for that update. ;-)

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#45

Post by chrisvasselli »

Blahah wrote: post #41
chrisvasselli wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would LOVE to have integration with e-books, I think that could totally change the way I learn Japanese. Since over time the app learns what words you know and what words you don't, it could even suggest books for you that are around the right difficulty level. Wouldn't that be amazing? Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any place where you can purchase DRM-free e-books, so I think this would require workin…

Aozora Bunko ( http://www.aozora.gr.jp/ ) is the only legitimate source I know of for ebooks (and they are free). Long term it would be really great to get some Japanese publishers to commit to ebooks, but I know that historically they have been strongly, publicly resistant. The Wakaru app does allow ebooks reading with a dictionary, but I always found it clunky and I don't think it allows easily generating cards fro…

Yeah, unfortunately I find the content in Aozora Bunko not all that interesting. Or at least, I don't know how to find good content in it. I actually built a proof-of-concept of a "Books" tab in Nihongo using Aozora Bunko, but I found it sort of unsatisfying, so I never pursued it further. I haven't used Wakaru before, I'll have to check that out.

I'll explore the audiovisual ideas more, that's pretty interesting, thanks. I'd love to have user-generated content in the app, like the ability to share decks. Seems like that could be a good way to handle image rights as well.

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#46

Post by chrisvasselli »

Albright wrote: post #40
Blahah wrote: post #33

OP, this is wonderful. I'm a long time japanese learner and I wrote the iOS Anki app. Just looking through the website (unfortunately I don't have an iOS device on hand), you've got some killer features here that I've wanted for a long time. 'clippings' looks really excellent. I would go so far as to say this is a game-changer for me as it currently stands. If you took the same idea and went bigger, that would be awe…

> 'clippings' looks really excellent. I would go so far as to say this is a game-changer for me as it currently stands. Midori, my personal favorite iOS J/E dictionary, has had a feature like this since I started using it, so for at least five years or so. =/ See the "Text Translation" section: http://www.midoriapp.com/features/

Yep, Midori's great, and I even took some inspiration from them for the Clippings UI. For me, the big difference is that Midori's version isn't integrated with flashcards.

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#47

Post by Nadya »

chrisvasselli wrote: post #45
Blahah wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aozora Bunko ( http://www.aozora.gr.jp/ ) is the only legitimate source I know of for ebooks (and they are free). Long term it would be really great to get some Japanese publishers to commit to ebooks, but I know that historically they have been strongly, publicly resistant. The Wakaru app does allow ebooks reading with a dictionary, but I always found it clunky and I don't think it allows easily generating cards fro…

Yeah, unfortunately I find the content in Aozora Bunko not all that interesting. Or at least, I don't know how to find good content in it. I actually built a proof-of-concept of a "Books" tab in Nihongo using Aozora Bunko, but I found it sort of unsatisfying, so I never pursued it further. I haven't used Wakaru before, I'll have to check that out. I'll explore the audiovisual ideas more, that's pretty interesting, th…

memrise.com handles media how Blahah described. User-submitted and it's the users' responsibility instead of Memrise's responsibility.

Mnemonics is essentially audiovisual cues to aid learning. Memrise is largely centered around them.

You might be able to borrow concepts, although this is making an assumption that you have not heard of Memrise.

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#48

Post by chrisvasselli »

Nadya wrote: post #47
chrisvasselli wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, unfortunately I find the content in Aozora Bunko not all that interesting. Or at least, I don't know how to find good content in it. I actually built a proof-of-concept of a "Books" tab in Nihongo using Aozora Bunko, but I found it sort of unsatisfying, so I never pursued it further. I haven't used Wakaru before, I'll have to check that out. I'll explore the audiovisual ideas more, that's pretty interesting, th…

memrise.com handles media how Blahah described. User-submitted and it's the users' responsibility instead of Memrise's responsibility. Mnemonics is essentially audiovisual cues to aid learning. Memrise is largely centered around them. You might be able to borrow concepts, although this is making an assumption that you have not heard of Memrise.

I've heard of Memrise, but haven't really spent any time playing with it. In fact, I just checked my phone and it looks like I downloaded it at some point and never opened it. Adding it to my list to check out, thanks!

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#49

Post by veidr »

gizmo686 wrote: post #35
veidr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Chris, looks like an awesome start. Some quick suggestions and questions: 1. You should fully support romaji entry for looking things up. The mechanics of switching input methods on iOS are pretty terrible so it is really inconvenient to have to switch into Japanese input mode. I searched for "hana" but got only 花合わせ and 花を引く as matches -- because those have 'hana' in the English definition string. Searching for は…

I like the approach that the kanji useing website I am useing [0] took to input. They accept the input itself to be in romaji, by transliterate into hiragana as you type. [0] https://www.wanikani.com/

That is good when the input is known to be Japanese, but in this case the user might be inputting Japanese using the English keyboard, or might be inputting an English word to look it up in Japanese.

Re: Show HN: Nihongo – Study Japanese using authentic text from games, songs, etc.

#50

Post by dtouch3d »

Lately I've been thinking of learning Japanese just like I started learning English. After two years of basic English courses starting from third grade, I started to play videogames like Pokemon and watch movies with subtitles and my vocabulary and proper expression greatly increased. So I should begin studying elementary Japanese for a while and then start playing pokemon in Japanese and study as it seems fit.

Good job OP! An Android version would be great!

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