Read The Kanji - a supplement for JLPT kanji study

[joeellis]

Hi all,
The JLPT is coming up this week and I just wanted to tell anyone looking to brush up on kanji about a web application I've been developing called Read The Kanji (http://www.readthekanji.com)

Basically, it is a quiz program for JLPT vocabulary and kanji compounds with stats tracking and a spaced repetition algorithm to keep track of your strong / weak words. I think it could serve as a pretty good benchmark for whichever level you plan on taking this year.

Also, the application is in constant development so it'll just keep getting better with each new version. I'm also always looking for new ideas and suggestions, so feel free to let me know what you think about it.

Anyways, I hope it helps you guys get ready for this week, good luck to everyone on the test!

[wccrawford]

I've been playing with readthekanji.com since you announced it on another forum I'm on, and I love it. I've definitely been improving my reading/vocab, and once you start playing it, it's hard to stop.

You didn't note it here, but the stats page is awesome. I've taken a screenshot and posted it to my picasa account so everyone can see without creating an account.



Kindly ignore how badly I suck... I'm much better than when I started.

[Psy]

Really neat stuff. That review chart is a real motivator-- the desire to get the entire thing bright green is going to keep people coming back. I went through grades 4 and 3 and found a few things:

決まる -- listed as "to be decide," there's a D missing.
家 -- as in "family," か is accepted as an answer but it should be け
洗濯 -- definition is "wash" but "washing/laundry" is more appropriate.
無理 -- definition is given as "compulsion" but the meaning is "impossible/overdoing"
迎える -- definition as "pick (person)" but means "to go to meet/to welcome"

Would be neat if you could load a full-browser page that would show all 2,451 at once, as well as some stats on the quiz page to let you know how many you've done, how much time you've spent, etc.

All and all, a great product. Thanks for making it.

[Psy]

*update*

Started playing with the JLPT2 wordlist and encountered an internal server error. While I doubt this has to do with my usage specifically, I believe the word I was at was 誘う.

Additionally, あかがね is a proper reading for 銅

[joeellis]

Really neat stuff. That review chart is a real motivator-- the desire to get the entire thing bright green is going to keep people coming back. I went through grades 4 and 3 and found a few things:

Psy, thanks for your support, I'm glad you like it! I've also made changes to the words you've mentioned. If you see any more words, just shoot me a mail, they are usually fixed within a day and upped to the live site.

Would be neat if you could load a full-browser page that would show all 2,451 at once, as well as some stats on the quiz page to let you know how many you've done, how much time you've spent, etc.

Wow, right on the money. This will be in the new version which we're hoping to up by the end of the week. Some more new stats and full kanji page. We don't have a "time you've spent on the site" stat yet, but that's a great idea, thanks!

Started playing with the JLPT2 wordlist and encountered an internal server error. While I doubt this has to do with my usage specifically, I believe the word I was at was 誘う.

We were having some server trouble earlier today which might have caused that error. Sorry about that! If it happens again, just let me know.

Additionally, あかがね is a proper reading for 銅

In the case of 銅, the kunyomi あかがね is a valid reading, but I don't believe it's covered in the JLPT vocabulary or used very often, which is why it isn't included in the program. The readings of such confusing words are *ideally* supposed to be taken care of by the usage of the kanji in the sentence (assuming all things correct and accurate). But, I am currently working on an advanced section that will cover harder and more difficult readings like that for people who want to take their studying to the next level.

And thanks for the feedback! If you have any more, let me know, I'm all ears.

[wccrawford]

The screenshot I posted early was from OSX and Firefox.

On Linux (Kubuntu 8.10) and Firefox, the stats page is all messed up because a few of the kanji are apparently slightly taller than others, stretching out the boxes and making everything wrap funny.

Can anyone recommend good fonts to use for Linux and Firefox? Here's how it looks.



Notice that the kanji that box that breaks it is like 1 pixel lower at the bottom, forcing the next row to start after it. Also, notice that all the kanji that break it are slightly fuzzy, like they aren't quite part of the same font. Crappy font. -sigh-

[Psy]

Certainly a wrapping issue. I've dealt with a lot of stuff like this before in my time and can offer up some advice:

1) Properly wrapped, each row should consist of 20 blocks-- as you can plainly tell the screenshot wccrawford posted is 19. I can see from the source that you have done the formatting through CSS, and while in an ideal world all browsers/platforms should support it uniformly, things get muddled up in practice. What I would advice doing is using a <table> with a no-wrap setting to separate each row of 20 blocks.

2) While the page size is pretty small anyway, there's a gross inefficiency in its printing:



By removing line breaks, white space, shifting the styles to the external files, and shortening the names of the styles, you can reduce the size of the page by nearly 60%:



Just my two cents. I'm planning to work my way up to 1,000 items in 2級 today. I tested myself on the vocabulary list not that long ago and there are around 1,400 words I need to learn. This tool will be of great help learning them.

[WalterWills]

Fantastic site!
But any chance of the option to sort Kanji not by their JLPT level, but by their school level? I.e. ichinensei, ninensei etc?

[jkid]

Giving the site a whirl, I really like it so far.

One small thing that may or may not be a program error. I have been asked a second time for the reading of a Kanji that I had already previously answered correctly.

Specifically: 二つ

In addition on the kanji for car, this is the example sentence.

「フェスティバ」ってフォードの車でしょ？
"Festiva" is a Ford, right?

I believe there is an う missing.

Overall, really like the site so far, thanks for sharing.

[Psy]

Nope. 「でしょ」 is an alternative.

Looking great-- I especially like how you've highlighted the words in the example sentences. I still maintain that you can cut a large amount of bandwidth usage on the grid page by adding these styles to stats.css:

.k4 {
padding:0.55em;
font-size:0.89em;
font-family:MS Gothic;
background-color:#1F9F09;
}
.k3 {
padding:0.55em;
font-size:0.89em;
font-family:MS Gothic;
background-color:#A4EF2C;
}
.k2 {
padding:0.55em;
font-size:0.89em;
font-family:MS Gothic;
background-color:#EDEF2C;
}
.k1 {
padding:0.55em;
font-size:0.89em;
font-family:MS Gothic;
background-color:#EF7B1D;
}
.k0 {
padding:0.55em;
font-size:0.89em;
font-family:MS Gothic;
background-color:#DF4C4C;
}
.k{
padding:0.55em;
font-size:0.89em;
font-family:MS Gothic;
}

And replacing the tags thusly:

class="kanji-stat" style='background:#1F9F09;' --> class="k4"
class="kanji-stat" style='background:#A4EF2C;' --> class="k3"
class="kanji-stat" style='background:#EDEF2C;' --> class="k2"
class="kanji-stat" style='background:#EF7B1D;' --> class="k1"
class="kanji-stat" style='background:#DF4C4C;' --> class="k0"
class="kanji-stat" --> class="k"

Other than that, I'm up to 1,100-odd and lovin' it.

[wccrawford]

I still maintain that you can cut a large amount of bandwidth usage on the grid page by adding these styles to stats.css:

I don't agree with shortening the 'kanji-stat' class to just 'k' (it's harder to read and maintain for humans) but I definitely agree that all the background stuff should have been done with classes. That -is- much easier to maintain.

[jkid]

Nope. 「でしょ」 is an alternative.

Thanks for letting me know.

[joeellis]

Fantastic site!
But any chance of the option to sort Kanji not by their JLPT level, but by their school level? I.e. ichinensei, ninensei etc?

We're going to expand the words from just the JLPT, so eventually we're going make some decks sorted by school level, yojijukugo, kotowaza, etc.

One small thing that may or may not be a program error. I have been asked a second time for the reading of a Kanji that I had already previously answered correctly.

Was it in the same session or a day or so afterward? If the latter, then that is because the cards have a time limit to them depending on how many times you answer it correctly (the more often you answer it right, the less often it'll be in the deck). If it was the former however, that's kind of strange. If it happens again, let me know, I'll take a look at it.

html stuff

Yeah, there are still plenty of things that still need optimizing. We just hadn't had a chance to take a look at it as things change so much with each version. We're getting there though, promise!

[jkid]

Was it in the same session or a day or so afterward?

It was in the same session.

[wccrawford]

Was it in the same session or a day or so afterward?

It was in the same session.

I've had it ask me the same word multiple times in a session, even if I got it right every time. I figured it was just because I didn't have one of the kanji in the word perfected. I can't name any words off the top of my head that did it, but I'll note them next time.