3.5 KiB
Executable file
Katanakana! (カタナカナ!)
Katanakana is an Android application built using the Phonegap Mobile Framework that aims to teach people one of the Japanese alphabets, Katakana. Katakana is often noted to be one of the more useful languages to have some sense of if you're visiting Japan, as it's largely used on menus and for words that aren't of Japanese origin.
It aims to teach through a somewhat algorithmic approach; what this basically entails is a simple formula that watches for how often a character is incorrectly identified by the user, and will adjust its "resurfacing" time based on the average amount of seconds it seems to take a person to commit a character to short term memory. This app is built to try and use short term memory as a jumping off point; for more information on the approach used here, consult the initial release article.
Something to note is that this application was built over the course of roughly 3 hours; it's an initial first shot/attempt that may or may not be 100% beneficial to people, but with refinement could be quite interesting. Katanakana is released under an MIT license in the hopes that others might find the approach interesting, and further extend it to the benefit of any party interested in learning Japanese.
The Version of Katanakana in the Android Market...
The version of this application is listed on the Android Market, and priced at 99 cents USD. The original author keeps it on there for the hell of it, but anyone is free to repurpose this and upload it to the market for themselves, just give proper attribution as the MIT license specifies. :)
Katanakana on the Android Market
Questions, Comments?
Email: ryan [at] venodesigns dot net
Twitter: @ryanmcgrath
Web: Veno Designs
Requirements for Compiling
Android Development Environment
Ant, if you're using a Terminal
Eclipse, if you're a Java-head who uses IDEs
Compiling This Yourself (Eclipse)
Eclipse has an Android plugin to facilitate this. I don't use it because Eclipse and IDEs just get in my way (what this basically means is that I don't even know where to begin with this). Documentation should be abound, though, as it's an official Google supported method for Android development.
If you work with this enough, feel free to submit a pull request for this section of the README, other Eclipse users would surely appreciate it!
Compiling This Yourself (Terminal)
To compile/run on a phone/device in debug mode, run (in the root directory):
ant -v debug install
To compile/store a signed version, generate an application keystore and run:
ant release
It should ask you for a keystore password/etc; if you did the generation step, you should know them. ;)