Anki for Palm OS - Japanese Flashcards for your PDA

October 25, 2007 on 8:00 pm | In Gadgets, Language | | Email This Post

Anki for Palm OS

I ran across the coolest Palm application for studying languages today! Anki!

And it’s free.

Anki (暗記) means “to memorize by heart” in Japanese, and this is a flash card program for Palm OS that helps you ANKI-suru the vocabulary for whatever language it is you’re studying.

You can create your own flashcards using a Windows based builder, but if you’re too lazy to do that, there are lots of extremely well-done Anki databases created by the community available for download on their website.

They have everything: Jyoyo Kanji  lessons,  Heisig flashcards, Chinese lessons, Korean lessons, Thai, GRE vocab… and Gaelic. Seriously – “What you want, baby they got it. ♪” Some of the flashcard sets are based on particular textbooks, so if you’re serious it might actually be a good idea to go purchase the textbooks so you can use the program to complement your learning. Of course, you can always create your own flashcard set for whatever textbook you happen to be using. (Unfortunately the builder only runs on Windows… I’ll stay right here on my Mac thank you very much.)

No matter how long I stay in Japan, I’m sure a quick run through of a random set of the joyo Kanji flashcards while commuting to work will always do me some good.

They’ve even got a “Japanese Places” database, that has the Kanji for places in Japan, and it quizes you on the reading, the region it’s in, and also… wait for it… how to say GOUROUSAMA ご苦労様 in the local dialect.

For example, for Hyogo they say that the equivilant of GOKUROUSAMA is えらいですなー。 Hrm… I’ll buy that. Though I’m quite certain no one would ever use that in the office! In Kanagawa they say that ご苦労様 is ごせーができますね。Apparently in Chiba they say おあがんなせー. Huh? Never heard of it, but I guess it’s extremely local. Fun bonus knowledge anyway!

On a slightly unrelated “note”, if you’re memorizing music, the verb is ANPU-suru 暗譜する, the 譜 is the same character in “sheet music”, which is GAKUFU 楽譜… I’ve got a guitar mini-recital on Sunday so it’s kind of on my mind!

Go download Anki, it’s great!

- Harvey

Related Posts... (in theory)   PAdict - PDA Tool for Japanese    Japanese Study Tools    Japanese ebooks at Aozora Bunko  

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10 Comments »

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  1. Gravatar

    Wait a minute…I’ve been using a completely different Anki this whole time. One had to have come first, and the one I use is a lot better:

    http://repose.cx/anki/index.html

    Plus, it runs on Mac and Windows, and there’s an internet interface so you can use it on your cellphone.

    Comment by Alex — October 25, 2007 #

  2. Gravatar

    Alex’s Anki certainly has a cleaner-looking website! The cell phone option looks cool too. But I like the idea of having software on the handheld rather than running up internet usage fees on the phone…

    Comment by Heather Meadows — October 25, 2007 #

  3. Gravatar

    Hold on a sec. This doesn’t run on Palm OS.

    It’s cool, but I want something for my PDA so I can use it on the trains!

    I like my Anki better. But, maybe I’ll give yours a try for my pc as well. Just to be fair… not that I have ANKI envy or anything…

    Comment by harvey — October 26, 2007 #

  4. Gravatar

    Took me all of 60 seconds to get it on my Palm after reading this Harvey! Terrific! Also it’s fun so I’m more likely to use it regularly. The Mexico office manager and I just ran through the first series of flashcards. He thinks it’s great too!

    Comment by Kitty — October 26, 2007 #

  5. Gravatar

    What would be really cool is if something like this came out for Nintendo DS.

    Comment by Clive — October 26, 2007 #

  6. Gravatar

    Hey Clive have you been watching http://naruhodojapan.blogspot.com/ ?

    They do reviews of Japanese language learning games for DS. Great blog! I plan to get a DS soon… soon…

    Comment by Harvey — October 26, 2007 #

  7. Gravatar

    Ooh thanks for the heads up Harvey.

    Elvis has left the building…

    Comment by Clive — October 26, 2007 #

  8. Gravatar

    Harvey,
    Kanken DS 2 seems pretty good .. except it’s entirely Japanese which makes it hard to use as a learning tool if you don’t already ahem speak/read Japanese.

    Have you by any chance seen any that start off in english?

    Comment by Clive — October 28, 2007 #

  9. Gravatar

    Update:
    “Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten” seems pretty handy as a cheap, accessable electronic Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary.

    Comment by Clive — October 28, 2007 #

  10. Gravatar

    I just bought a DS today! I got Kanji Kentei 2. And… a puzzle game with the US title “Planet Puzzle League (DS)”. Can’t wait to get it open!

    The Kanji sonomama rakubiki jiten would be nice if you needed a way to look up words in kanji and didn’t have a dictionary. Real dictionaries can look up words that are not in Kanji, and also have more example sentences than the DS software.

    Kanji kentei would not be useful if you weren’t already pretty decent at Japanese… But if you ARE, it’s a great way to keep “leveling up”.

    Comment by harvey — October 28, 2007 #

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