Japanese Academy 0.27

[wraggster]

News/release from Project iXs:

What is what Japanese Academy?

It is an application intended to learn the Japanese characters, developed out of C and using the PAlib bookshops. To use my application you need a Nintendo DS and a linker.

At present, on this first version usable, only Hiragana can be to study, in the direction reading and the direction writing, then will come Katakana and Kanji. Graphics and sound effects are well on unfinished and ergonomics and the contents will improve with the son of the versions.

Download and Give feedback Via Comments

[Eyedunno]

Looks pretty terrible from the pics. In order to properly learn hiragana/katakana/kanji, you have to write them, and these crappy quizzes look pointless to me.

[rancor01]

uh.. no. youre wrong. I learned about 50% of my hiragana in one afternoon using visualization methods... "to" looks like a "toe" and such. Its made life in Japan much easier and I'm happy to see projects like this taking shape. God knows my jap girlfriend has enough "learn English" programs on her DS... Now maybe I can catch up.

[DreamDogg]

Thanks for this wonderful little program. It's very clean and well-done. I love it! Are there any plans to add vocal sounds ?

[horiyoshi]

i can't wait for the katakana and kanji parts of this game!

[Eyedunno]

uh.. no. youre wrong. I learned about 50% of my hiragana in one afternoon using visualization methods... "to" looks like a "toe" and such. Its made life in Japan much easier and I'm happy to see projects like this taking shape. God knows my jap girlfriend has enough "learn English" programs on her DS... Now maybe I can catch up.

Whatever gives you the idea that I was criticizing "visualization methods"? Mnemonic methods like the one you mentioned (I learned "to" the exact same way, "se" as a caricature of a guy named Senor Gonzales, and so on) are very effective at the beginning. But merely being able to recognize characters is not enough for true mastery; you have to be able to produce them yourself, and for that, writing is absolutely vital. To realize this, I had only to witness the difference in reading speed and comprehension between those of us in my college Japanese classes who struggled to take notes in Japanese and those who did the quick thing and just used romaji to make things easy.

Anyway, this does not appear to be the same kind of mnemonic-based thing anyway. I'm basing my opinion of this solely on the screenshot, but it appears to be like flashcards, only not even as good, as it gives you hints (which is less effective in terms of promoting long-term recall).