Useful Sites To Learning Hiragana and Katakana

bmwracer wrote:Check this link: http://www.msu.edu/~lakejess/kanjigame.html

Yuck, I need more practice. I pretty much failed. Bleah. :( :sweat:

dude, it should be easier for you, you're chinese? Mike....go to the corner of the class! LOL!

niko2x wrote:dude, it should be easier for you, you're chinese? Mike

Not at all. I know more Japanese characters than Chinese... Oh man, if my mom heard me say that, she'd have a cow! :sweat: :hehe:

I did perfect on level 5 :beaten: :google: I'm gonna try more levels. They have 67 levels.........:nut: Hehehehe, it's kinda fun ;)

KouSeiya315 wrote:I did perfect on level 5 :beaten: :google: I'm gonna try more levels. They have 67 levels.........:nut: Hehehehe, it's kinda fun ;)

It's always fun when you're winning. :( ;) :hehe:

i got 3 perfects until the 4th, then i was hit with a grade of c. :(

niko2x wrote:i got 3 perfects until the 4th, then i was hit with a grade of c. :(

That's still better than me... Maybe I should give up. :(

bmwracer wrote:
That's still better than me... Maybe I should give up. :(

I find that the X that flashes up for 'wrong' is only visible less than half the time - you have to pay close attention to the 'number remaining' which goes down when you get one right, and up when you get one wrong.

I don't think it is a very well designed game. If you know all of them perfectly (except for one or two where you have no clue whatsoever) you'll just keep getting those wrong again, and again so your score will plummet. I would have had it display the correct answer - maybe not the first time - but what's the point in making people guess, guess and guess again until they finally get it right?

Fatma you should go to your local bookstore (or amazon.com/barnesandknoble.com) and buy a book called Japanese: the spoken language by Eleanor Harz Nada with Mari Jorden. Also purchase with it Japanese: The written language. JSL is VERY good for learning even without a teacher. The romanji is written in what I think the best style (she=si and tsu=tu) but it takes a little while to get used to it. Also, The JWL book is important because it teacher you Katakana first and also in the proper ORDER so that you can actually write right away. By the time you get to Hirogana and are halfway thru you will be able to write SOOOOO much. Also, the JSL (Japanese Spoken Language) book will teach you in polite form. This is the best way to learn because once you know enough it is easy to switch to other forms. Besides, if you go to japan or speak with a japanese you should only use polite form anyway. If it all sounds hard trust me it's very very easy and I've compared this book with others, and I think it is the best. By the way there are 3 levels of books but my Japanese teacher only uses the first one and then switches to another for intermediate japanese.

Hi,

I've just launched the first major version of my new hiragana & katakana learning webapp named Kanaflash.

It's based on the flashcard technique, which has proven itself to be an extremely useful way of learning many characters quickly. It will show you random characters and ask you to enter the roumaji translation of it. It's also designed to be a little bit more thought-through and stylish than most similar webapps i've tried on the internet.

All you need is a fairly new version of the Macromedia Flash plugin, Kanaflash is completely free of charge and requires no registration.

You can find it here:
http://www.ichigo.se/kanaflash/

Since it's pretty new i'm on the lookout for suggestions and criticism, what's good? What's bad? What could be done differently? What could be added? Feel free to contact me and let me know!

Cheers!
Tobbe
http://www.ichigo.se/ | http://www.northcore.se/

Its quite a good tool.

Perhaps at the end (if there is one) it can show you which ones you got wrong.

is it possible to make a reverse test? Ie the person is given the word in romaji and asked to pick out from, say, a multiple choice of 6 answers the correct one.

dampwashcloth wrote:Its quite a good tool.

Perhaps at the end (if there is one) it can show you which ones you got wrong.

is it possible to make a reverse test? Ie the person is given the word in romaji and asked to pick out from, say, a multiple choice of 6 answers the correct one.

Thanks!

The idea of getting an overview of what you know and what you don't know sounds great! Do you think a complete chart of all the kana would be good, or do you think only the ones you've failed at is neccessary?

As it is right now it randomizes the kana it shows you, i'm in the progress of implementing some intelligence into it so the ones you know don't show up as often as the ones you really need to study. I expect this feature to be added in a day or two!

As for the reverse idea - i like it! As it is right now it would mean i would have to rewrite a whole lot of code though, but i've written it down and could probably be something for Kanaflash v2.0! (In that version i've planned to have complete words in hiragana/katakana aswell - not just characters). Think that would be a good idea?

wow thats a very cool program...
im gonna tell my friends who are in my japanese class that are still trying to learn kana to go to ur site
thanks! =)

noodlefreak wrote:wow thats a very cool program...
im gonna tell my friends who are in my japanese class that are still trying to learn kana to go to ur site
thanks! =)

Oh, thanks man - that's very nice of you! The more people that test Kanaflash the better :-)

i think what you have is great tobbe. great job! :applaud:

tobbe303 wrote:

Oh, thanks man - that's very nice of you! The more people that test Kanaflash the better :-)

no problem tobbe303!
thanks for creating it! i think it will help my friends A LOT in our class...
our sensei is always telling us to make flashcards but my friends are too lazy to create them hahaha

Any way to add multiple spellings for the answer? For example there are many "ya"s (like bya, kya...) but your spelling for jya is ja. I don't know what the official romaji spelling is for ja/jya...so maybe ja is correct and not jya...but it seems like it's inconsistent.

Aside from that it's pretty handy!

gregsan wrote:Any way to add multiple spellings for the answer? For example there are many "ya"s (like bya, kya...) but your spelling for jya is ja. I don't know what the official romaji spelling is for ja/jya...so maybe ja is correct and not jya...but it seems like it's inconsistent.

Aside from that it's pretty handy!

Depends whether you're using the ƒwƒ{ƒ“Ž® or the ŒP—ߎ® to transliterate.
Most foreigners favor the ƒwƒ{ƒ“Ž® (Hepburn-shiki) because ja, shi, and fu are more easily recognizable for ‚¶‚áC‚µCand ‚Ӂ@than jya, si, and hu are.
ŒP—ߎ® is what is taught to Japanese children in school, although they can read both. But, for all intensive purposes of this web app, in my personal opinion, I think that the Hepburn-shiki is probably the best choice.

Unless, of course, the programmer decides to allow input for both to be correct.

HTH,

‘‰¤š

A chart of right/wrong would be really cool.

And yeah, a way to practice words entirely in hiragana/katakana would be really awesome.

Its a shame you can't test english --> hira/kata. Perhaps add that on as an adjunct for people to practice on pen and paper.

Great program btw. :woot:

tobbe303 wrote:

Thanks!

The idea of getting an overview of what you know and what you don't know sounds great! Do you think a complete chart of all the kana would be good, or do you think only the ones you've failed at is neccessary?

As it is right now it randomizes the kana it shows you, i'm in the progress of implementing some intelligence into it so the ones you know don't show up as often as the ones you really need to study. I expect this feature to be added in a day or two!

As for the reverse idea - i like it! As it is right now it would mean i would have to rewrite a whole lot of code though, but i've written it down and could probably be something for Kanaflash v2.0! (In that version i've planned to have complete words in hiragana/katakana aswell - not just characters). Think that would be a good idea?

kokuou wrote:

Depends whether you're using the ƒwƒ{ƒ“Ž® or the ŒP—ߎ® to transliterate.
Most foreigners favor the ƒwƒ{ƒ“Ž® (Hepburn-shiki) because ja, shi, and fu are more easily recognizable for ‚¶‚áC‚µCand ‚Ӂ@than jya, si, and hu are.
ŒP—ߎ® is what is taught to Japanese children in school, although they can read both. But, for all intensive purposes of this web app, in my personal opinion, I think that the Hepburn-shiki is probably the best choice.

Unless, of course, the programmer decides to allow input for both to be correct.

HTH,

‘‰¤š

To me it makes sense to have both be correct (if possible) since I don't think Romaji is very helpful (or useful) as a learning tool. It's used in this case because you have to have some way to give a response (and clearly oral isn't going to work).