http://iflipr.com/
This is a web application, meaning a website specially optimized to work on your Iphone/Ipod touch. You don't have to install anything, which means that you don't have to tinker with the machine firmware. It allows you to create flashcards either from your desktop computer or directly from the Iphone, and then to study them with a learning algorithm called the Leitner method. You can chose to drill your cards front to back or back to front (ie japanese-english or english-japanese), you can also make your card database public (there are already some japanese databases in their library). Apparently you can also embed photos, sounds or videos, though I haven't tried it. The interface is very user friendly
Oh, and it's free too...
Looking around on the net, I found 2 very interesting things that work with this application:
- japanese IME for Iphone
you obviously don't need this if you use the Ipod Touch, but there's a java applet that lets you input japanese on your Iphone. Once again, this is something you can use without tinkering with the phone firmware, so I think it's pretty safe. I've used it for almost 3 months now (ever since I've had the phone) and never had any problem with it. I even contacted the programmer in january when the link was down for 2 days and he was very nice and set it back up really quickly. Here's the link to the keyboard :
http://n.h7a.org/iphone/jkeyboard/
and to the installation instructions :
http://n.h7a.org/blog/entry/1525#body
it's all in japanese, but basically when you go to the keyboard page, there's a line that says "bookmarklet for embedded jkeyboard". You need to copy that link, bookmark it into our browser and then sync your Iphone so that the applet is now a bookmark on your phone. When you want to use it on a web page, once that page is loaded, go in your bookmark section and chose the applet. It will load on your phone and links to the embedded keyboard will appear next to all text-input areas on that page.
(If anyone has trouble with that, I can post a more detailed explanation)
The same programmer also has other programs for the Iphone, including one that allows you to write emails in japanese and send them from Mail...
I've used this applet to post in the forum, in the comments, on mixi... it works great. the only thing is it can be a little slow, as each time you write a new word it has to search for the right kanjis. But then again, it's the only way to write japanese on a non-jailbreaked Iphone with the recent firmware as far as I know, and if you're on Wifi instead of EDGE then it's really OK.
I also found a korean IME for the Iphone and Ipod Touch (which doesn't have one pre-installed) that works basically in the same way. I'll put more details about it on the KoreanClass forum.
http://www.koreanclass101.com/forum/vie ... =1757#1757
Finally, I also saw a chinese IME for the Iphone, but not being at this time an active chinese learner, I haven't tested it myself.
http://www.gownfull.com/
So on the whole, with this method you can have Iphone/Ipod touch optimized flashcards which you can even modify or create when you're away from your computer ! 素晴らしいでしょう?
PS：for the french speakers I'll probably make my flashcards databases public, both for korean and japanese; however, I have been studying on supermemo on my palm so far, and I just don't have the energy or time to retype everything into iFlipr. I'll do it gradually, and mostly starting from this week's lessons. So bear with me !!! You'll find them under "Coréen" and "Japonais" in the shared databases section.
