Show HN: I'm making an open-source platform for learning Japanese

The idea is actually quite simple. As a Japanese learner and a coder, I've always wanted there to be an open-source, 100% free for learning Japanese, similar to Monkeytype in the typing community.

Unfortunately, pretty much all language learning apps are closed-sourced and paid these days, and the ones that are free have unfortunately been abandoned.

But of course, just creating yet another language learning app was not enough - there has to be a unique selling point. And then I thought to myself: why not make it crazy and do what no other language learning app ever did by adding a gazillion different color themes and fonts, to really hit it home and honor the app's original inspiration, Monkeytype?

And so I did. Now, I'm looking to find contributors and testers for the early stages of the app.

Why? Because weebs and otakus deserve to have a 100% free, beautiful, quality language learning app too！

For anyone interested, you can check it out at --> https://kanadojo.com and let me know what you think ^ ^

Show HN: I'm making an open-source platform for learning Japanese
kanadojo.com

Looks neat but wish it wasn't sending user data to Google Analytics of all places.

the UI is very good. Especially on my touchscreen laptop.

It's pretty good straight out of the gate. I think giving customization of fonts is an excellent idea. There's huge variation in this area and font-switching is a definite stumbling block for anyone doing JSL. If someone has gotten used to a sans serif font from a textbook or Anki deck, for example, the more visually complex serif fronts used on official documents and exam papers require extra mental effort to parse. Likewise being able to switch color combinations easily is a good idea.

Might be good to allow the kanji/vocabulary to be filtered by JLPT or Jouyou stage. Picking multiple sets on the kanji units was a bit tedious, it's be nice to 'pick all' for a drill (but I was using it to test myself rather than learn new ones). I don't understand the pick options (pick, reverse, input, output) - they seem superfluous and perhaps need tooltips. Maybe add audio recordings at some point, although that's a bunch of work. You can use AI to generate it of course and it will be mostly correct as far as individual words go, but Japanese AI voices still seem to get pitch shapes and timing wrong sometimes.

It looks great. I would suggest changing the kanji next to the label "Kanji" to 字 instead of 出, though. 字 is the second character in the word 漢字 (kanji) and means "character." I would also suggest changing the kanji next to the "Vocabulary" label from 言 to 語. 語 is the second character in the word 単語 (tango) and means "word." The あ next to the "Kana" label is perfect.

出 means "to go out or exit" and doesn't have anything to do with learning Kanji. 言 means "to say" and is only tangentially related to learning vocabulary.

Still, great job!