Hello,

As I study Japanese words and sentences in a flashcard program, I decided to add a field on the answer side to show Heisig's keywords.

Example:
Question: 最低
Answer:
reading: さいてい, meaning: at least, etc.
Heisig Keywords: [utmost][lower]

I am looking for a script that can generate the "Heisig Keywords" field automatically. So the script can be for a flashcard program, spreadsheet, etc. I already tried to search the Internet but couldn't find any such utility...

Does anyone know of such a ready script?

Thanks in advance.

I add the Heisig keywords to most of my flashcards. I have a Python script that can be run from the command line, as well as a web version. You can try out the web version here:

http://www.reavesmd.com/cgi-bin/heisig.cgi

I apologize in advance for the user interface, which is essentially nonexistent.

If you're comfortable with the command line, I'll be glad to share the other version of the script, which can be useful for adding a Heisig column to spreadsheets before importing them into Anki.

What would be even better would be an Anki plugin to automatically generate a Heisig keyword field, similar to the way the reading generation works....

Thank you so much for your reply.

jreaves Wrote:If you're comfortable with the command line, I'll be glad to share the other version of the script, which can be useful for adding a Heisig columns to spreadsheets before importing them into Anki.

Yes, a command line version would be perfect for my needs; that would be a tremendous time saving for me. I really appreciate it.

jreaves Wrote:What would be even better would be an Anki plugin to automatically generate a Heisig keyword field, similar to the way the reading generation works....

Yes, I had the same thought. I guess that others don't care so much about including the keywords in their cards.

Here's the script. You'll need Python installed on your system. Paste the script into a text file, edit the path for the Heisig data file, make the script executable, and give it a run. I believe I got the Heisig file through the Anki website. I may have downloaded the Heisig Anki database and exported to get the text file. Anyway, if you have trouble with that, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy. It's too big to paste here.

#!/usr/bin/python
# Usage: Search column 3 of inputfile for kanji. Rewrite each line in inputfile to the screen with an additional Heisig field at the end.
# inputfile is assumed to be tab-separated and UTF-8 encoded.
#
# ./addheisig.py inputfile 2 > outputfile # Column numbering starts with 0
#
# Same as above, but format the output with just the keywords, not the kanji.
#
# ./addheisig.py inputfile 2 -k > outputfile
#
import sys, codecs

RTK = 'heisig-data-2.txt' # Change this path/file name for your system
file = codecs.open(sys.argv[1], 'r', encoding='utf-8')
col = sys.argv[2] # Column in the input file where we look for kanji

keywords_only = False
if len(sys.argv) > 3 and sys.argv[3] == '-k':
keywords_only = True

for line in file:
searched = []
heisig = []
parts = line.split('\t')

for ch in parts[int(col)]:
if ord(ch) >= 0x4E00 and ord(ch) <= 0x9FBF and ch not in searched:
searched.append(ch)
rtk = codecs.open(RTK, 'r', encoding='utf-8')

for entry in rtk:
rtkparts = entry.split('\t')
if rtkparts[0] == ch:
if keywords_only:
heisig.append(rtkparts[1])
else:
heisig.append(rtkparts[0] + '-' + rtkparts[1])
break
rtk.close()

print line.strip().encode('utf-8'),
print '\t'.encode('utf-8'),

if len(heisig) != 0:
# Oddly, if these lines are combined into one, the output cannot be redirected to a file.
h = ', '.join(heisig)
print h.encode('utf-8'),
else:
print " ".encode('utf-8'),
print ''

file.close()
sys.exit(0)

It is working perfectly. Thank you so much for your kind help.