New Supermemo does Kanji justice

I really didn't think he'd every come up with the high-res version, but here it is.

Nothing else exciting, and he still uses some graphic mode rather than just using the text facilities on the palm (and as such, you can't choose which system font to use--on my clie it's not the best/biggest one). But it's great to finally be able to use palm supermemo with Japanese without having to guess what you're looking at.


Grab it from http://www.mapletop.com/supermemo/new.html

Want a treo phone that works in Japan

Does anyone know if it's possible to use one of those nifty US PalmOS smartphones in Japan? I know they wouldn't be officially not supported by any Japanese carrier, but if I'm reading it correctly I believe Cingular supports a roaming partnership with both Docomo and Vodaphone. So is it possible to buy a TREO 650 GSM model, swap the SIM card and use a local Japanese contract?

It'd be great to stop carrying so many gadgets.. These days the ipod mini looks pretty cool, but I don't think I could put up with lugging another thing around.

progress...

I couldn't be more pleased with my progress studying Japanese with Supermemo.

As of today, I can write 1605 kanji on demand, with an error rate of about 10%. I've added many times that number of words to my vocabulary.

I can't believe I didn't have this when I was in school. My company generously provides me with an hour-long class per week, and finally I'm actually learning what the guy teaches me at the time.

Too bad the silly guy who wrote the palm-version of supermemo won't take the time to upgrade it to use hi-res.

... update ... The hi-res palm supermemo is out.

Another Supermemo PDB

Someone asked for a Heisig Version of my supermemo database.

If you're following Heisig and don't know Japanese at all yet, I guess that's preferable. Personally, I know enough to prefer my original stroke & frequency based ordered PDB, templated to show the meaning, readings, and compounds as the question and Kanji as the answer.

I hope mapletop updates the software eventually. I'd really like hi-res and to tweak the forgetting rate--I'm guessing that with 2000 kanji to learn one would be better off with a more aggressive strategy than the hard-coded 10%. And with a database this large, it'd be an awful shame if I can't transfer the learning process to another version if I decide to upgrade to a smartphone or something on a different platform. So if you use these, please bug them!

BTW, for other versions of Supermemo, it's possible to use something called SuperMemo converter to convert these databases. I tried the Q&A format for uploading this to the web-page version of supermemo, and with some minor tweaking of the file was able to get it imported.
Otherwise, if someone wants to convert to xml and upload these files somewhere, please be my guest (but a little credit would be nice).

LearnAlphabet databases for Kanji

I'm still using supermemo to learn to write kanji (at 722 characters now) and increase my vocab, but wanted something to help me review a little bit whenever I have extra time and have finished my supermemo quiz. Unfortunately the drill feature in that program is a little clunky to use (esp. as I didn't categorize any of the data files below--but in any case, you don't want to mix extra practice with drilling the cards you get wrong). Anyway, to make a long story short, I found a nice little free program called learn-alpha and made new data files for my customized kanji-ordering (in sets of 200 kanji). Learn Alpha is a very simple quiz program, but it suits my needs (the files have bitmaps of the main characters but depend on a Japanese environment for the reading, so that's a waste, but anyway it works). Here are 10 files representing the 2000 most common kanji in the same order as the below supermemo file:

• kanjiquiz0.pdb (1-200)
• kanjiquiz1.pdb (201-400)
• kanjiquiz2.pdb (401-600)
• kanjiquiz3.pdb (601-800)
• kanjiquiz4.pdb (801-1000)
• kanjiquiz5.pdb (1001-1200)
• kanjiquiz6.pdb (1201-1400)
• kanjiquiz7.pdb (1401-1600)
• kanjiquiz8.pdb (1601-1800)
• kanjiquiz9.pdb (1801-2000)

These require a Japanese capable palm (either a Japanese model or one with JOS or the like installed) and the Learn Alpha program. Note that program comes with Kanji cards ordered by grade level, but the "answers" are just the English meaning. My cards have kana readings, an example compound, then an English keyword.

Supermemo: A great memorization program

Lately I've been using a wonderful little flashcard/learning program called supermemo on the palm platform to study for the level1 (maybe this year!?). I'm making a number of card sets that other's might find
useful. I'll post more as I clean them up a bit:

• 2000 most common kanji (for writing practice). You may need reset the database to start fresh. Please try this out and let me know what you think. You may also want to play with the template after you upload it to suit your studying style (recognition vs. writing, e.g.).

Although I do recommend the program generally, note that it tries a bit too hard to display nice text in graphics mode, so unfortunately the current version cannot use hi-res Japanese fonts. But it's still usable and hopefully the author will come out with a hi-res version soon!

Sony PEG-TJ25: a great cheap handheld for learning Japanese

As for palms themselves, let me whole-heartedly recommend the awesome Clie PEG-TJ25 Japanese version. It comes with the best handwriting recognition software I've seen to date, and it's like 20,000 yen! And a Japanese<->English dictionary. It's a no-brainer (I still use the kanji dic with kdic as below).

KDIC dictionaries for people LEARNING Japanese

    Well, I finally got around to creating my own KDIC dictionary files based on EDICT, appropriate for Japanese learners like myself (the one's currently out there are better suited to a Japanese audience). I've made small & large versions of each file, so people can choose what suits them best. I personally use the small English and Kana keyed dictionaries, and the large KanjiDic and Edict (Jukugo) dictionaries.


    Anyway, with these dictionaries and various software installed on my palm, I can sit in a cafe and read a Japanese novel without lugging around a giant reference and/or taking 5 minute breaks to look something up by stroke counts. It's not quite Rikai embedded on my retina, but it'll have to do 'till that comes out (and I would certainly hope to be able to read well enough by then anyway).

    But first, maybe it'd be worthwhile explaining what these dictionaries offer. Perhaps the best way is to look at a few random definitions
from the source files:

1. English To Japanese
   
   
   
   

   Name	Key Type	Definitions	Size (kB) small/large		Size (lines) small/large
   TRE2J.PDB	English	Kanji Reading & Kana Reading	613	3095	26286	115790
   Downloads: small large	festival フェスティバル 祭=まつり 祭り=まつり 祝い=いわい crime (scene of the) 現場=げんば
   Note: I tried to make a compact English->Japanese dictionary out of EDICT here, without garbage, and I think it came out rather well. Note that the original edict entry is "scene of the crime", which will also show up when looking up "scene".



2. Japanese by Sound

   Name	Key Type	Definitions	Size (kB) small/large		Size (lines) small/large
   TRKANA.PDB	Kana (not ROMAJI!)	Kanji Readings & English Meaning	431	2198	17733	77948
   Downloads: small large	せんせんげつ 先先月=month before last じゅんし 殉死=dying a martyr;following someone in suic.. 巡視 inspection tour マグマ magma
   Note: Why not Romaji? Well, for one, if you're reading a word on your palm in Japanese (you can do that, right?) but you're dictionary is in romaji, KDIC DA won't help much then, eh? Besides, it's easy to install a keyboard hack to allow Japanese input, or better hand, handwriting recognition.



3. Japanese by Written Form

   Name	Key Type	Definitions	Size (kB) small/large		Size (lines) small/large
   TRKNJI.PDB	Jukugo (Kanji Words)	Kana Reading & English Meaning	606	3581	14550	79969
   Downloads: small large	愛着 あいちゃく=love;attachment;covetous affection 寝過ごす ねすごす=to oversleep 割れる われる=to break;to split;to crack;to cleave
   Note: Here's how you read Japanese articles when you don't have them in electronic format (when you have it on your computer, you DO KNOW ABOUTRIKAI, RIGHT?). Go out and buy PALM software to do handwriting recognition Use this dictionary, which will tell you the English AND the reading (yeah!)



4. Japanese Character Dictionary

   Name	Key Type	Definitions	Size (kB) small/large		Size (lines) small/large
   TRKDIC.PDB	Single Kanji	Readings & English "Meaning"	98	182	3010	6356
   Downloads: small large	少 ショウ すくない すこし few;little 週 シュウ week 勝 ショウ かつ がち まさる すぐれ.. victory;win;prevail;excel
   Note: The other missing piece of the puzzle for gaijin learning Japanese has always been Kanjidic. Well, here it is. I haven't included all the goodies to preserve space--just readings and "meanings".

   
   
   
   

Credits & Links

In case you didn't know, none of this stuff would be possible and/or useful without the
wonderful work of these folks:

• Professor Jim Breen's many contributions to the Online World of Japanese, especially the source of these dictionary files.
  
• the excellent "KDIC" dictionary program for the Palm
  
• J-OS, to let one see Japanese on English Palm Pilots. This hacker-dude-san guy also made the technology for the popup KDIC (and many other popup-apps, called "Desk Accessories"). How cool.