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Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - TypeHeroku - 2010-05-05
Hi fellow Heisigers!
Having almost-finished RTK1 I found myself reading Japanese in my head through Heisig's keywords alone. For instance, I would pass by a fire extinguisher and read 消火器 as EXTINGUISH-FIRE-UTENSIL. Or read 特急電車 as SPECIAL-HURRY-ELECTRIC-CAR.
I knew such readings were laughably primitive but they were truly helpful and beautiful. Which led me to want to be able to write in them. The result is the following webapp: http://type.heroku.com/japanese
I added simple kana processing and the result is a reasonably complete, early-stage web RTK-based IME. No, I don't think I've found the silver bullet of Japanese IMEs. Having skimmed Nanette Gottlieb's fascinating "Word-Processing Technology in Japan: Kanji and the Keyboard", I'm somewhat aware of the rich history and incredible ingenuity that has gone into modern IMEs (this blog post http://blog.gatunka.com/2009/09/12/using-a-japanese-ime/ is also a good resource).
I just think this is fun. So please take a look at it.
I'm a bit afraid people will think this a god-insulting aberration, so let me list some possible advantages of this approach:
* Using it helps you REMEMBER Heisig's keywords
* It can be quite EFFICIENT (notice you don't have to type a whole keyword in the webapp, only the smallest fragment that would uniquely identify it, indicated by the bolded beginning of the keyword). My rough guess is that it is just a bit less efficient than the keystroke efficient of mainstrem IMEs
* It is STRAIGHTFORWARD: the same input always produces the same output and there's no need to do anything that can't be stored in muscle-memory (that is, there's no fiddling with changing menus).
* It is much less COMPUTER INTENSIVE than normal IMEs (not so much of an advantage with current computers)
* Turning it's historical roots over, it could be a way for Japanese people to learn and practice basic ENGLISH words
As for the future, the 2 major impending features are being able to type kanji through their primitives and to make kanji keywords more easily discoverable.
I'm aware of a similar-ish thread already in the forum: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=78367#pid78367 but I thought this was sufficiently different to merit its own thread.
It's definitely a niche product, perhaps merely a fancy crutch for beginners. But hopefully it might be useful or interesting to some of you guys. Please let me know what you think about it either through this thread or the app's email, type.heroku@gmail.com
Thanks,
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - jettyke - 2010-05-06
Thanks , I´ve wanted to write kanji with keywords, will come in handy!
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - Groot - 2010-05-06
Hey, that's really neat! Great job.
One question, though. How do I choose a "nearby" kanji if I type in a word that produces three possible choices? E.g., I typed in "tea", and by default it wanted to give me "tears." It indicated that "tea" and "teach" were nearby, but I didn't see a way I could select either of those two options. I can get "teach" by continuing to type a "c", but I can't ever seem to produce "tea." I had the same experience with "day" -- I can get "daytime" but not "day."
Perhaps you could mimic an IME and let the "enter" key (or "page down" or something) bring up a menu of kanji choices? A keyboard shortcut would be optimal so as to avoid mousing, which slows down typing.
Still, I'm very impressed. This will certainly be useful when I want to type a kanji but can't remember its reading. On the other hand, I do want to make myself remember those readings, so I might use your tool only as a backup; an IME does make me produce readings, which is a benefit in itself. Still and all, it's a great tool, and I thank you for taking the time to create it.
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - TypeHeroku - 2010-05-06
Thanks for your kind feedback Groot.
As to your question, there's always only one possible output for a given input. So, if you type 'tea' AND a space, you will get tea, 茶. In other words, all you need to do is hit space. The nearby choices below are only hints, you have to type extra letters to hit them. What will get written on the next space is what's displayed above. If you pay careful attention, typing 'tea', 'tears' and 'teach' appear as the below NEARBY options, 'tea' appears above, as what will be written next, ON SPACE.
Similarly, typing 'day' AND a space, will give you 日 (to get daytime, 昼, you would have to type 'dayt'). Sorry if this is not clear from the app, I'll see what I can do to make it clearer.
Yup, keyboard shortcuts are better than mousing, which is why mousing doesn't even exist in this app
I hope that cleared up things.
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - Groot - 2010-05-06
Hmm, when I type tea and a space, I get tears. Once I type the letters "tea", I see at the top "tears on space", and on the bottom I see "teach tea nearby". In other words, tea brings up "tears" by default, not "tea." If I type tea plus space, I get tears. Are you sure it's working the way you describe?
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - TypeHeroku - 2010-05-06
Ah! You must be on Chrome, right? I just tested 'tea' in all browsers, and I got the behavior you described on Chrome on a Mac. Sorry about that, I'll put a note about it and try to fix it. IE, FF, or Safari should work in the meanwhile. Thanks for noticing that, totally escaped me!
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - Groot - 2010-05-06
Oh, yes, I'm on Chrome. Not always, but lately I have been. I'll try it on Firefox now.
Edit: Yep, it worked fine on Firefox.
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - nest0r - 2010-05-06
Have you seen this? Heisig IME
See also: http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/Heisig_IME
Typing the Kanji with RTK keywords - TypeHeroku - 2010-05-11
Thanks Nestor, that was a great pointer that I didn't know about. Theirs is the exact same basic idea, though they start to diverge in the implementations. An IME integrated into the OS makes possible a more extensive use. By having it inside the browser you get portability in exchange. And by focusing exclusively on Heisig's keywords it's possible to start looking for some shortcuts for typing efficiency.
This is great, I'm adding links from the app as well. Thanks again.
Update: I just fixed the Chrome issue. It had to do with the Javascript sort function behaving differently there. Again, thanks for spotting it.