掲示板 Forums - IPhone Apps for Nihongo Study

I didn't find a topic on this, i hope I'm not duplicating.

Have you Dl'd a Iphone App for Japanese Study? How is it?

I'll Start -
Kanjibox [url=http://kanjistory.com/kanjibox-for-iphone/]kanjistory.com/kanjibox-for-iphone/ [/url]

I wanted offline quiz's. Once a month, I spend an entire day in our Subway system performing environmental monitoring. The entire time I'm underground, I'm off the web (No Renshuu.org!?!?! How terrible!). A good portion of the time, I'm just sitting in a station, or the tunnel itself, waiting for the train to take me to the next site. Good time to study! I used to carry the NDS just for these occasions, But I'd rather not carry so much, as I'm already carrying plenty of work equipment.

I purchased Kanjibox from Itunes when I surfaced for lunch. it was $2.99. it loaded quickly.

It's pretty cut-and-dry. It has thre sections - Kanji, Vocab and Kana.

The kanji and vocab are organized by JPLT level, I selected 4 and 3. and started quizing

Negitive - Only 1 quiz format is given English diffinition/Select proper Kanji/vocab.

So nothing realy spectacular, I just ran through the questions really fast. It doesn't break the quizes up, they just keep going as long as you want to answer them. They do pick a few similar looking Kanji in the answers to keep you on your toes. It has 80 level 4, 166 Level 3 and 732 level 2. According to the Statistics section of the program, in 2 days, I've already ran through the Level 4 and 3 and just started the level 2's
I don't think you ever "Master" a character in this program, I think it keeps it in rotation, but I could be wrong.

The Kana section gives you the reading in romanji and you select the proper Kana. It gives some very weird ones, I've never encountered before, like VYA　ヴゃ, VYE　ヴぇ, Some of the hiragana for WE　ゑ and WI ゐ　are obsolete right? Well not on this program. Again, they just keep going, over and over till your tired of it.

the vocab section has 715 level 4 and 669 level 3 words. I haven't started on level 2 or 1 so no telling how many they have.

It's kind of strange, Words that I've only encountered in kana, are all presented in kanji. i.e. has anyone seen もちろん　written as 勿論？ I always knew that these words had Kanji forms but are, by convention, used in kana exculsivley - Right?

overall - for $3, it's alright - I guess - I wanted more - Let's be honest - I WANTED an offline renshuu.org - for $3 bucks - but you all know about that troublesome "Reality" stuff, right?

I actually liked Kanji-box. It is simple and it gets me started when I have a minute or two to spare. Sure, it does not have everything, but for the price, I think it is a great little app.

Another great iPhone-app that I have enjoyed, is Kotoba. It is a free Japanese dictionary, and you can look up words both in English and Japanese (even romanji!). It has kanji-compounds, conjugation, example sentences and more. Super handy, and for the price - free - it is just great, so much easier than to carry a dictionary!

StudyArcade: free App that allows you to download and use Anki flashcards. All Genki textbook lessons are covered for example. Not as good as renshuu.org for cramming vocabulary, but quite good and works when you are offline

Japanese 2.1 - a really excellent Japanese dictionary, including vocab learning / tests eg JLPT4, and brilliant Kanji search options

HumaJapanese - best Japanese text book for self study I found so far. COmplements Genki well - I use both. You can try the "light" version for free, but after completing it I wenton and bought the full one. Fantastic value for money

The site's 'study resources' section has a space for software/websites now, so if there's anything else (kotoba is already in there) that you'd like to add, let me know.

I also use Kotoba! and highly recommend it for a general dictionary for the iPhone.
It`s extremely useful in everyday life (living in Japan) and gives examples and definitions in various languages.
Besides just vocabulary, it`s also useful for looking up phrases and Kanji if you can input them by their readings.

However, for Kanji, I use an amazing program that I`m pretty sure no one else has mentioned yet.
It is called Shin Kanji and it`s by far the best Kanji program I`ve experienced in my limited 3 years of study. When studying or traveling, furigana is not always available and looking up kanji by the radical method is extremely tiresome and tedious. This program let`s you look up any kanji character by letting you draw it by hand on the screen. The program will then count the number of strokes you`ve used and the position of the lines and give you 20 or so possible kanji that match (pretty accurately) the kanji you`ve drawn. This is extremely useful and I`ve never studied without it since purchasing the app last year. I can imagine it`s the same as an electronic Eng/Jap dictionary with an input pad but this costs only a fraction of the price and can be carried around in your pocket just like every other app.
Definitely 2 thumbs up!

wbxreilly (and others using Kotoba!), a little tip about drawing kanji on the screen, this is actually possible in Kotoba.

Here is how to enable handwriting input in kotoba:
1. Go to your international keyboards in the settings on your iPhone/iTouch, and go under Chinese.
2. Enable the "handwriting"-keyboard under Chinese.

If you enable that, you can use that Chinese keyboard in Kotoba to input kanji by handwriting on the screen! (Not sure it is as good as the other program you mentioned since I have not tried that program. In Kotoba you need to have the stroke order correct and all that jazz, which sometimes is hard if it is a complicated kanji you are not familiar with, but I still find it pretty useful.)

In addition to the ones listed, I'll add Kanji Dream.
Priced at $3.99, it's cute as hell if nothing else, haha.
It's for learning kanji (also kana, if you want), and is sorted by JLPT levels. You can learn more than one level at a time, and adjust the difficulty level for each group.

It gives you the kanji, and has you spell out the reading (either on or kun). Instead of typing the reading, it has an assortment of kana for you to pick out to spell the reading. You can make it easier or harder by having more or less kana to choose from.
It also will show you an English word and have you pick which kanji goes with it.
It shuffles around the different question types, and remembers which you suck at, so it can show you your weak kanji more often.


マイケル, if you want Name/Description/URL, here is from their website:
[b]Kanji Dream[/b] - http://www.kanjidream.com/
Kanji Dream provides you with an entertaining and informative way to improve your kanji reading ability. Kanji Dream quizzes you on all of the readings and meanings of the kanji you learn. You get to spell out each reading and meaning for the kanji, instead of just being shown a bunch of readings for a kanji and being asked "Do you know these?" or "Did you get this one right?" Kanji Dream lets you know when you get a reading right or wrong, and helps you by getting the kanji readings you know out of your way so you can focus on the ones that are giving you extra trouble.

[img]http://kanjidream.com/images/screenshots/GamePlayShot.png[/img]

I just discovered "Japanese My Way" which is a great app for learning/remembering how to write kanji. You can trace the kanji with your finger on an iPad/iPhone, both with and without guides, and it has the smarts to let you know if it recognizes it. The developer is very responsive.

Well worth the $1.99!
-Mike

I like Japanese fliip and kanji flip. It is paid [url=http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japanese-flip/id289263209?mt=8]http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japanese-flip/id289263209?mt=8 [/url]but decent app. It is like SRS based flash card, just do it for 30 mins daily, you will see significant improvement in your reading ability just after one week. I personally like Japanese flip very much.

Hey, I have plans to release something like that on the site in the future :).