Read The Kanji - a kanji / vocab quiz application

[joeellis]

Hi all,
I just wanted to let anyone who might be interested that I am currently developing a kanji / vocab quiz web application called Read The Kanji (http://www.readthekanji.com). Basically it tests you on how well you know JLPT kanji / vocabulary by asking you to type in the readings for various kanji compounds (which is harder than it looks!). Also, it has a stats tracking system to give you an idea of how well you're doing, and example sentences to go along with the words. I thought it might be helpful to the people preparing for the upcoming JLPT.

If you do use it, I'd love to hear any feedback or comments you might have. There is a feedback system built into the site, so feel free to send me any thoughts or things you would like to see implemented.

And good luck to everyone taking the exam this year!

[katafei]

Looks very nice.
I'll be visiting a couple of times this week ^_^

[Kenitai]

Hey, that's awesome! I'm already using it. So far is looks really good!

[fielle]

I found this somehow a couple weeks back--it looks really nice, and I was really happy when you implemented the example sentences. In fact, I would really like it if there was an option to just see the kanji in the context of the sentence (highlighted red or such for clarity), and not have the big word above.

The other thing I'd like is to be able to see the stats for more than 500 kanji at a time, although I'm not sure if that's a design or a database issue.

[Kenitai]

I'm still using the amazing web application. But it'd also be cool if there was an option like to type in kana rather than romanji. But nevertheless, it's really helping me to remember all those kanji.

[richvh]

I typed in kana in it with no problem. And what's this "romanji" thing you speak of?

Spoiler:

There is no ン in ローマ字

[Kenitai]

I typed in kana in it with no problem. And what's this "romanji" thing you speak of?

Spoiler:

There is no ン in ローマ字

Ah you're right! Nevermind my previous post then.

[two_heads_talking]

I typed in kana in it with no problem. And what's this "romanji" thing you speak of?

Spoiler:

There is no ン in ローマ字

Ah you're right! Nevermind my previous post then.

I'm still using the amazing web application. But it'd also be cool if there was an option like to type in kana rather than romanji. But nevertheless, it's really helping me to remember all those kanji.

No worries. just saved it for future reference..

[joeellis]

I found this somehow a couple weeks back--it looks really nice, and I was really happy when you implemented the example sentences. In fact, I would really like it if there was an option to just see the kanji in the context of the sentence (highlighted red or such for clarity), and not have the big word above.

The other thing I'd like is to be able to see the stats for more than 500 kanji at a time, although I'm not sure if that's a design or a database issue.

We have just finished the code that will highlight the word in the sentence for you while doing the quiz, it'll be in the next version. I don't know about hiding the big word above, as that is kind of necessary to the quiz; but we have been thinking about adding a more complex quiz in which the user would have to correctly input all the kanji in a particular sentence. Perhaps that is a bit closer to what you're asking?

As for the 500 kanji thing, at the time with the layout, it would have been too database heavy to display them all, so what we're working on now is trying to separate the grid from the stats and make them in separate views. Maybe this way it will be less heavy and all the kanji can be displayed on one page (which would look pretty rad I think).

[fielle]

We have just finished the code that will highlight the word in the sentence for you while doing the quiz, it'll be in the next version. I don't know about hiding the big word above, as that is kind of necessary to the quiz; but we have been thinking about adding a more complex quiz in which the user would have to correctly input all the kanji in a particular sentence. Perhaps that is a bit closer to what you're asking?

Kind of. Mostly I was thinking that there'd be something like (taking from the first page that pops up on your site):

万年筆を持っていますか。
Do you have a fountain pen with you?

And you'd just have to type in 万年筆. Though typing in the whole sentence would also be a good way of doing it. I'm at the point where seeing sentences is more useful than individual words, and having some option such that I don't just look at the word helps me get that extra exposure. Context is a good thing.

[joeellis]

We have just finished the code that will highlight the word in the sentence for you while doing the quiz, it'll be in the next version. I don't know about hiding the big word above, as that is kind of necessary to the quiz; but we have been thinking about adding a more complex quiz in which the user would have to correctly input all the kanji in a particular sentence. Perhaps that is a bit closer to what you're asking?

Kind of. Mostly I was thinking that there'd be something like (taking from the first page that pops up on your site):

万年筆を持っていますか。
Do you have a fountain pen with you?

And you'd just have to type in 万年筆. Though typing in the whole sentence would also be a good way of doing it. I'm at the point where seeing sentences is more useful than individual words, and having some option such that I don't just look at the word helps me get that extra exposure. Context is a good thing.

That is a really good idea. I know exactly what you mean, context really is everything. I'll see if I can't fit that into the next version. It could just be an option to hide the word. Also, I think this would probably be better than typing in the whole sentence as that takes time and the risk for mistypes is much higher, which is never fun.