Kaye
If you could create any type of app to help you learn Japanese, what features would it have?

I definitely want something that includes both of grammar and vocabulary, myself...

 

I'm thinking of developing an app! Help me figure out what people would want. 

May 3, 2015 5:37 AM
Comments · 2
3

One of the main problems with apps and SRS programs that I use is that there are too few sample sentences for each word, so I look at the kanji I'm supposed to be remembering, think 'I have no idea', then look at the rest of the sentence and think 'Oh, I remember this sentence, it was about ~, that kanji must be ~'. So I'm not thinking in Japanese and if I saw the same kanji in a new piece of text n daily life I wouldn't know the meaning or reading of it.

That said, example sentences are far superior to kanji in isolation, as they help learners to gain insight into natural usage, context and when different readings are used.

My ideal app would have at least 5 or 6 example sentences for each word or grammar point. There would be no romaji and it would allow a variety of testing methods to check I knew the meaning in English, the reading and could translate the word from English to Japanese, as well as identify the kanji from hearing the hiragana.

My idea app would have a lot of grammar support, with interactive tutorials (arranging words etc). It would use mnemonics to help memory and have native speaker audio.

Resources that work well for my Japanese learning include readthekanji.com, memrise.com, slime forest (hiragana/katakana learning game), scritter, wanikani, iknow and anki. I like the cultural insight japow offers, but some of the artwork is questionable. If you are devloping a game app I suggest you read tofugu's latest review of the Japanese Game and see what they did right and wrong, as there's a lot of potential there that has been poorly executed.

Very importantly- the interface would not rely on hackneyed and racially reductive stereotypes of the Japanese such as sumo, samurai, ninjas or geishas, instead it would be themed in a culturally sensitive way that actually helped foster a curiosity and offer cultural learning points as the user advanced through the game/program.

May 3, 2015

I will not use it if it uses romaji. 笑

it should have a frequency list that it follows. 

maybe have it work with forvo.com to get native speech

if you need a beta tester, give me a message!

May 4, 2015