Weekly Thread: Material Recs and Self-Promo Wednesdays! (August 09, 2023)

5 comments

1. Hello r/LearnJapanese!
   I’m Jesse, one of [MaruMori.io](https://marumori.io/)’s main content creators, and I’d like to introduce our platform to you!
   Our aim is to create the most fun and complete platform available, while also making sure we offer accurate and info-rich native content. Basically, the resource we all wish existed when we first started learning!
   Let me give you a snapshot of some of our main features:

   * An immersive “adventure” map, featuring grammar lessons, reading exercises, and conjugation drills. These grammar lessons are one of our main focuses, and we’ve put in a lot of time to make sure they’re packed full of info. These will eventually cover all JLPT levels.
   * A custom kanji + vocabulary SRS system that uses known kanji as radicals, rather than making up new ones
   * Comprehensive study lists for each JLPT level
   * Known vocabulary imports, and custom study lists
   * Mini games such as Japanese wordle and crosswords!

   Plus many more features in the works! Coming up very soon is our grammar SRS system along with JLPT mock exams.
   And after a long beta period where we absorbed as much community feedback as possible, we’ll finally be officially launching the platform on August 12th! I’m beyond excited for everyone to try the MaruMori out, and would love to hear your thoughts!
   To wrap things up, here’s a short hello from Satomi, one of our team’s native speakers:
   日本語を勉強しているみなさん、こんにちは！
   私はMaruMoriの日本語ネイティブメンバーのさとみです。 MaruMori は、詳しい文法解説や漢字と文法のドリルで、しっかり基礎を学びながら、楽しいゲームやリーディングを通して、実際にネイティブが使っている日本語に触れられるプラットフォームです。 皆さんが日本語を楽しく学べるよう、一生懸命お手伝いします。
   一緒に頑張りましょう！！

2. Manabi Reader for iOS and macOS

   https://reader.manabi.io

   I quit my job last year and worked mostly on this full rewrite of my Japanese reading app, Manabi Reader. The rewrite gave me the opportunity to expand to macOS (and without Catalyst so it feels extra native) and redo the data layer to be offline-first via Realm with iCloud sync.

   The biggest differentiators compared with other language study apps are that it tracks every word/kanji you read so that you can see how much of a given webpage/article you’re already familiar with and other features/analytics built on that foundation; it automatically builds a personal corpus of example sentences; and that it does all the Japanese tokenization/dictionary lookups locally on-device and in a flexible web browser-like UI with readability mode, to be respectful of your privacy and to work offline.

   I’ve also added Anki integration. Tap a word, tap another button to save it to Anki with the original source material sentence and URL. I have a Manabi Flashcards app as well if you don’t like Anki.

   Packed with free features. See what percent of each article’s vocabulary you’re familiar with based on your reading history. Scan paragraphs of text with your camera to look up words. Japanese/English dict. Native Japanese web dicts. Look up kanji by drawing. Expanded JLPT levels. RSS. Web browser UI. Save links from other apps. Works offline. Readability mode. Tap words to look them up. Furigana depending on your familiarity with each word.

   Future plans: besides more features (ePUB, YouTube, mpv player, WaniKani integration, more languages, etc), I’m also preparing the underlying SwiftUI web browser lib as open source and will launch it as a WebKit-based browser/reader option, which I’m excited to get out alongside other interesting recent entrants to the desktop and mobile browser market

   I’m just getting started so please let me know if it’s been helpful to you or if you have any feedback on what you’d like to see added. Cheers

3. I’ve been reading the first Harry Potter book in Japanese, and although it is very difficult and slow, I think it’s worth trying just due to the fact that it has furigana on every single word for some reason.

   I already have a high level of kanji knowledge (for example, I’m lvl55 on WK) and have only seen one unknown kanji so far, but having furigana on everything is still useful because sometimes I’ll see words that have readings I would have never guessed (for example, 明日 being read “asu” instead of “ashita” for some reason, or 蝶番 being choutsugai).

4. こんにちは、友達

   I’m an independent developer and just released a new language learning app where you create stories interactively with ChatGPT. Every chat comes with an automated translation, including callouts for subject/verb pairs and useful vocabulary. You can have the app read all of the chats to you as well. A special feature for Japanese is the inclusion of romaji for vocabulary!

   Here are a few screenshots: [https://imgur.com/a/1an8ygh](https://imgur.com/a/1an8ygh) . The app is currently only on iOS and is not available in Europe due to GDPR. 見てくれてありがとう！

5. Hi,

   I’m a long time student of Japanese, live in Tokyo, and want to build more things mixing my passions like language learning, AI, and software dev.

   I’d like to introduce a project I’ve been working on: [bunshou.com](https://bunshou.com).

   Basically, the website provides an interactive and detailled analysis of a Japanese sentence from popular media. There are multiple advantages to learning with content from the real world, and I’m just getting started exploring this space.

   [Screenshot!](https://bunshou.com/images/UI.png)

   Here’s how my platform works in more details if you’re interested:

   * Daily Sentence Analysis: Each day, I select a unique Japanese sentence and break it down. Understanding the meaning behind the sentence can help grow your vocabulary, refine your grammar, and deepen your appreciation of Japanese culture.
   * Interactive Language Insights: You can hover over parts of the sentence to unveil word definitions, grammar explanations, usage examples, and more.
   * Native Pronunciation: Not sure about pronunciation? Listen to original Japanese pronunciations directly on the site.
   * Source Discovery: I include the source of each sentence, whether it’s from a news article, a manga, an anime, or a classic text. Knowing the context can add an extra layer of intrigue to your learning journey.

   I created Bunshou with the hope it would be a fun, helpful tool for Japanese learners. I would really appreciate if you guys could check it out, and if you want a daily reminder to study, there is a free newsletter.

   PS: I would love your feedback too, for example, adding one sentence per JLPT level if people would prefer that. Or if the mobile version is unusable with your phone.