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Recommendations for iTouch/iPhone Apps

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pitto
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Iphone app : Kata-Touch

Postby pitto » November 18th, 2010 6:31 pm

Hello, I have been studying Japanese for a while and always found katakana very difficult to master (especially to read it quickly), so therefor I made an app. It's called Kata-Touch and it is a time based puzzle game. Feel free to try it out. I'm working on a hiragana version now too.
With the app you can train 5 katakana at a time or play katatouch wich mixes all the katakana.

For some screenshots and more info go here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Katatouch/174532755894756

I have some free download codes left for US residents. Contact me on the facebook page on the link above.

untmdsprt
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Postby untmdsprt » December 17th, 2010 6:49 am

Dragon dictation now has Japanese support so you can practice your speaking.

http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/dragon-d ... 46764?mt=8

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Javizy
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Joined: February 10th, 2007 2:41 pm

Postby Javizy » December 17th, 2010 1:08 pm

untmdsprt wrote:Dragon dictation now has Japanese support so you can practice your speaking.

http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/dragon-d ... 46764?mt=8

Thanks for the tip. I already had it installed and updated, but I had to reinstall it to get Japanese working. I doubt I would have tried that by myself :D

I have NaturallySpeaking 11 on my PC (using it now), but I haven't found a Japanese one that wouldn't involve gambling at least £150 only for it to turn out crap.

English on my iPod works shockingly well. The microphone seems to be pretty decent, since the call quality is really good on FaceTime and Skype. I've already had a couple of kanji issues, but the Japanese version should be great for practising clear enunciation and getting used to using voice recognition in Japanese.

untmdsprt
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Postby untmdsprt » December 17th, 2010 1:14 pm

Doesn't work for me right now which tells me I need to work more on my speaking.

Javizy
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Postby Javizy » December 17th, 2010 1:58 pm

untmdsprt wrote:Doesn't work for me right now which tells me I need to work more on my speaking.

I made a little thread on RevTK. I posted a sample of dictated text. Maybe some other people will as well.

Bob1
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Posts: 26
Joined: April 22nd, 2006 11:44 pm

Kanji LS Touch

Postby Bob1 » December 22nd, 2010 6:22 am

I recently discovered this app, and as you can read below, I like it a lot. But feel free to tell me why a different app is better.

First of all, this app really shines in training you to write and remember the kanji. In this day of word processors, it might seem that for most practical purposes, all you need to do is recognise each kanji. From sad experience, I can say that until you can write the kanji, you haven't really learned them, and you'll be prone to confusing similar ones.

I skimmed through this thread, and didn't see this software (iPhone and iPad two-in-one app optimised for each) mentioned anywhere. Although Kotoba! is a really awesome app, especially considering that it's free, I prefer Kanji LS Touch by far for studying kanji systematically. In practice mode it allows you to paint the kanji with your finger, and you can turn cuing on or off. In cuing mode, it shows a faded version of the kanji in the background (either system font or handwriting font) that you want to paint, and indicates the next stroke and where it starts. You can and should turn that off after a few practices so as to exercise your own memory, but you can always toggle it back on. The kanji set you want to study is highly configureable, as is the way you test yourself. Generally useful predefined kanji sets come with the app (grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, secondary school kanji, JLPT N5, N4, N3, N2, N1, all joyo kanji, and all kanji, as well as custom sets that you create and import yourself via a free service such as dropbox.

As mentioned, the flashcard tests you set up are highly configureable, with reading to kanji, kanji to reading, meaning to kanji, kanji to meaning, fill in the missing kanji, etc. with options for either timed multiple choice or your typed-in answer or painted-in kanji. When you paint in the kanji, you end up being the ultimate judge of whether the kanji is right or wrong. To decide, you touch the "solve" button, and the kanji you just painted is displayed alongside the correct kanji (again, toggle-able between system and handwriting font). But one of the refinements that make this an absolutely best-of-breed kanji learning app is the "stroke" button you can push to check your work while you're on this screen. Push it once, and you can see both the correct first stroke and where it starts juxtaposed against your first stroke and where you started it. Pushing this button repeatedly, you can step your way through the entire kanji, making sure you got all the strokes right. If you got the order or direction wrong, you'll notice it, and if you left one out, even a "minor" one, you'll really notice it when the highlighted strokes get out of sync as you step through. And even if you got it right, this serves as one additional reinforcement of the correct stroke order. Again, it is up to you how stringently you want to grade yourself. If I'm off with the proportions, but get the stroke order right, I score it as "right" even though an elementary teacher might mark it "wrong." But if stroke order doesn't matter to you, you're free to ignore even that.

Also, you can set the language interface and meanings to display in English, French or German.

Also, like many flashcard kanji learning systems, you can turn on the Leitner system, which basically keeps track of which kanji you're having more trouble with, so that you can study them more.

My only quibble with this app is that the choice of kanji-related vocabulary is occasionally curious in containing seldom-used words.

Many will be disinclined to purchase a $12 app when a very good app like Kotoba! is already available for free. A miser by nature myself, I can identify with this attitude, but it is a false economy. How much is your time worth? Kanji are absolutely essential in advancing your Japanese language skills, but they are a high mountain to climb. You should give yourself every advantage for mastering them efficiently!

macanudo
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Postby macanudo » December 23rd, 2010 1:55 am

Bob1,

I just checked out Kanji LS Touch myself. It looks like an incredible app. One question, are you using the kanji/kana practicing app or the regular 'vocable' app. The 'vocable' app looks like a vocabulary powerhouse. It seems like it contains 145,000 words that you can drill. It looks pretty useful and has example sentences built into it. I believe it uses the same dictionary as kotoba.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to purchase it and maybe write a review.

Bob1
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Joined: April 22nd, 2006 11:44 pm

Japanese LS Touch

Postby Bob1 » December 23rd, 2010 7:29 am

Macanudo,

By "the regular 'vocable' app," I think you are referring to Japanese LS Touch (also by Jan Bogner). While that is a good app too, and recycles many of the really superior modules used in Kanji LS Touch, the difference, as your question acknowledges, is the focus. Kanji LS Touch focuses on learning the kanji, allowing you to improve your kanji skill in a systematic way, while Japanese LS Touch focuses on learning vocabulary, including the constituent kanji. Since I know that my own greatest language weakness is kanji, I prefer to focus on them for now, and study them in a systematic way. I have lived in Japan for over two decades and have been a subscriber to JapanesePod101 since the day they started charging for subscriptions; hence, vocabulary is less of a problem for me. In any event, I prefer to learn vocabulary in context rather than as lists. If you want to learn kanji as you learn the words containing them, Japanese LS Touch would indeed be a good choice. The ability to import custom vocabulary sets does make it very attractive for use in conjunction with whatever lessons you happen to be studying. It is possible that I might buy it in the future, but for now I want to concentrate systematically on my own biggest weakness, the kanji.

JackiJinx
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Joined: April 1st, 2009 11:27 pm

Postby JackiJinx » December 28th, 2010 11:04 pm

Any good iPad dictionary apps? I just got one and was wondering if there was anything good that's iPad specific yet.

bobspain3606
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Joined: January 5th, 2011 7:03 am

Postby bobspain3606 » January 5th, 2011 7:17 am

Hi all,
Sorry if this appears too pushy/spamy but I'm really excited about my new app and site [url="http://www.drmoku.com"]Dr.Moku[/url]

Everybody here is most definitely waaay past learning Hiragana but maybe there are some beginners.

There is a lite version as well as a full version for both iPhone and iPad.

There are animated stroke orders and quizzes on the site too.

Thanks for looking

http://www.drmoku.com

oliverrose
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Joined: September 16th, 2008 12:33 pm

Kanji Wordsearch App

Postby oliverrose » January 9th, 2011 4:44 pm

To study kanji in a new and enjoyable way, check out the Kanji Wordsearch app:

www.kanjigames.com

(Video demos available on Facebook site)

It will be available from Tuesday 11th January, 2011.

Hope you like it!

Oliver Rose

Javizy
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Joined: February 10th, 2007 2:41 pm

Postby Javizy » January 15th, 2011 1:57 pm

Kind of an obvious one, but 大辞林 is awesome. It's such a well-designed app that's packed with features and performs really well. I've already found it invaluable having quick access to pitch accent codes. It has its own Japanese handwriting input as well, so you don't need to worry about the problems with using the Chinese one Apple provides.

After the recent Anki update, I found out about the URL Scheme feature which allows you to switch between apps. Rather than double tapping the home button, opening the app and typing in a word, I just tap the word on my flashcard and it automatically looks it up in 大辞林, with a bar at the top to let me go back. iBunko has this feature already set up for you (you just tap and hold a word to bring up the menu).

untmdsprt
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Postby untmdsprt » February 24th, 2011 7:07 am

iBunko looks like it would be a very nice app to add. It automatically downloads everything on the Aozora Bunko site and displays in a vertical view. If the text has furigana, it will also display that.

japantrip20002011
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Joined: February 28th, 2011 11:21 pm

Postby japantrip20002011 » February 28th, 2011 11:46 pm

The KanaWords game for iPhone (http://kanawords.com) is a fun way to learn hiragana and katakana. The game links each kana with a word that starts with that kana -- like "sushi" for hiragana "su" and "piza" (pizza) for katakana "pi". Then you have to reconstruct the words. So you learn the kana in context, along with useful vocabulary. The game has audio for each kana and each word. It looks great too, with Japanese prints for screen backgrounds. There are screenshots at http://kanawords.com/screens.html.

visisl124984
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Joined: March 31st, 2011 1:53 pm

Postby visisl124984 » March 31st, 2011 2:10 pm

Great resource!

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