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iPhone apps for Japanese

#1
Hey,

Just thought I would organise a wiki page for the iphone. So the question is; "What apps/tools do you use on the iPhone/Pod/Pad to study japanese?"

I have made a start http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/IPhone_Applications and just made it similar to the Android page http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/Android_Applications.

Going through some older posts, this is what I have found to get started. Any comments are appreciated;

Katsuo Wrote:Using the iPhone/pod/pad Chinese recognition for writing Japanese can be frustrating.

The following apps have their own built-in handwriting recognition for Japanese:
Daijisen . Chamcham mentioned this above. I haven't tried it myself.
Daijirin This is a J-J dictionary. The writing area is a bit small, but the recognition is excellent.
wishoTouch I haven't tried this one. It looks a bit expensive, and the handwriting seems to be a paid-for extra.
Shinkanji-search-free. This is free, but is no real use by itself. It's intended to get you interested in a paid-for version that includes a dictionary.
Katsuo Wrote:JapanGoggles Free (at the moment). This is a simple OCR. If your iPod/Phone has a camera you can shoot and identify kanji & kana. It works well if the image is crisp & clear. You have to be careful not to block the light with the iPod/Phone.
Bokusenou Wrote:If you like visual novels there are some good free ones, i.e N.E.D.E, Selene, うたかたのそら(無料版), Abyssal Eden, Higurashi 1, etc.
Games for iPhone (in jp):
BooBooQ88 Wrote:RPGs:

Final Fantasy I
Final Fantasy II
Chaos Rings
Chronicles of Inotia
Chronicles of Inotia 2

FPS:

N.O.V.A
Brothers in Arms
em
Blahah Wrote:
MakiSushi Wrote:Hello,

I have the perfect App for you on the iPad.
It's called Wakaru.
It can read ebooks from Azora Bunko and has a built-in Japanese-English dictionary.
I have found a demo here :

http://www.youtube.com/user/WakaruApp

Cheers,

Maki
This is PERFECT!!

It has a browser and ebook reader, it has a popup EDICT dictionary (like rikaichan) which you can use on both book and websites, and it saves a list of your looked-up words to import to Anki later.

Game, set, match.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wakaru/id351047145?mt=8

oh yeah, and I have a Kindle 3. It sucks more than I was expecting. It's really good for reading well-formatted books in English, in fact I prefer it to reading a real book, and for this it's much better than an iPad (got one of those too). However, the processor is painfully slow and looking up a word or opening a menu takes a painfully long time. There is a built-in dictionary (in English), and I'm looking into getting a Japanese dict installed. You can also annotate your books, but later exporting the annotations is not easy. If all these problems can be overcome it will be great - mine has a battery life of over a month with daily use (!!!) and the screen is really a pleasure to read on.

I reckon wakaru (app above) on the iPad/iPhone is the answer we've all been looking for.
p.s. Please put me out of my misery if there is already something like this floating around.
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#2
Japanese. Breaks down sentences (somewhat). Can do conjugated words. Marking, stroke order, so on. Very handy.

http://www.codefromtokyo.com/japanese There's a good video of it in action!

http://mobileinjapan.com/2010/05/30/revi...or-iphone/
Edited: 2011-01-06, 2:11 am
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#3
"Everything below is an APP."
Not related, but useful:
Twitter (I tweet in Japanese, sometimes, lol.) - I photograph my writing and post it up using twitter (easy upload, no hassles)
Cinch (audio upload on the go) - I post my audio to twitter then Lang8 so this is useful.
'Yep, Twitter is my hub'

Radio Japan
Shoutcast (search Japanese, Japan)
Wunderadio
Timers (time boxing)
"Awesome Notes". If you like to organize your writing on your Iphone (another lang-8 thing)
Tae Kim's Guide App
Good Reader for reading PDFs (i.e., Manga, books)
Katsuyo (conjugates verbs for you - list isn't massive, but it covers for you when you don't know your stuff yet)
MXTube (jailbroken) - Keep youtube videos on your phone.
Edited: 2011-01-06, 1:39 am
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JapanesePod101
#4
One very cool feature of Japanese is that you can cut and paste an entire list into an email, so, much like Rikaichan, everything you look up can be cut and paste into Anki. It's like Rikaichan on the go.
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#5
You might want to start by reading the *many* previous threads on this, they will all have something to contribute to the wiki page...

Reading RAW manga on the iPhone
Update must have apps for iPhone
Apps for iPod Touch
How to buy J apps with no credit card
Study kanji using the iPhone
Japanese and American apps living in harmony
iTouch apps - which do you use?
Comparison between J Sensei and JapaneseLS

If you get the wiki page started I have quite a bit to contribute which I haven't written in any posts yet; reviews, tips and tweaks etc.
Edited: 2011-01-06, 5:10 am
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#6
This was a handy post for me. I didn't realize the newer version of Japanese had so many options. I've now started three sets of tags where if I look up the word once I tag it green (once), the second time gets a orange tag (twice seen), and third time a red tag (learn). When it reaches "learn" I check it's not in my SRS already and, if not, add it in and reschedule it in for the next day. (You can email lists to yourself, so everything is cut and paste.)

I think I'll use this for all my writing and reading materials. This should give me a list of quite common words that I'm seeing a lot. I could even envision this as something I could use for stuff that comes up during talk or from media. This sort of compounding of vocabulary work seems very efficient to me and I think will really help me find the words I need to learn and avoids words like "heart attack", which if you've read Deathnote should be stuck in your mind for all eternity and beyond, lol, that you probably know pretty well (given the Deathnote thing) as you didn't need to look them up again!

So thank you heaps for starting it! This really helped me a lot!
Edited: 2011-01-06, 11:54 am
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#7
Secret of Mana (聖剣の伝説2) has recently been released in the App Store and plays in both languages. You can even switch the languages in the games option screen while playing.
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#8
Thanks all for the posts!
Blahah Wrote:If you get the wiki page started I have quite a bit to contribute which I haven't written in any posts yet; reviews, tips and tweaks etc.
I have made a *small* start here: http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/IPhone_Applications

cheers
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#9
Tune Wiki App. http://www.tunewiki.com/apps/tunewiki-apple.aspx

An application that brings social networking, internet radio, videos and song lyrics all into one place. This application automatically searches for the song lyrics you need and plays them as you listen.

Notes:
Probably searches for the song name, so likely not to work super well with internet radio where the song names can be quite different from the lyric file song title. Uses Shoutcast. Very feature rich.

Seems to work ok. I searched for a few Arashi Songs in the lyric search mode and found 20 or so. Also, you can see youtube videos for songs you find on internet radio stations (quite nice to just click a button), which is pretty cool. Does some fancy other stuff, but why not check out the site.

P.s., This is my first day using this application, but I like it so far (a good replacement for the a lot of the stuff I regularly use).

Overview
Tunewiki is the first media player ever to combine music, videos, community and legal lyrics for free! In this document we will guide you through all the screens and features of the TuneWiki Media Player for iPhone. TuneWiki will open up some amazing new options for you, and playing your "same old" music will never be the same!

* Play your music while lyrics appear on screen, synced with the audio.
* Find music videos on YouTube by artist and song.
* Listen to thousands of streaming internet radio stations with synced lyrics.
* Search for your favorite song’s lyrics legally whether you own the actual song or not.
* Get translations of your favorite songs to multiple languages contributed by your peers.
* Contribute to the community by adding and syncing lyrics to songs that are missing from our database.
* See what is playing around the world and where in the world specific songs are being played on an interactive world map.
* Follow the top songs and artists in different regions.
* Share your thoughts about songs and artist with others around the world.
* Experience your music with a whole community around you to explore!
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#10
Seems to work ok with Kawaii-radio (shoutcast) - so far...
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#11
There's a new android app called "music mate" which let's you stream and download mp3s for free straight to your phone. There's tons of J-music on there even a Japanese charts section. On top of all that when you download the song and play it through the app it scrolls the lyrics automatically.
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#12
Not an app, but I noticed the rumours flying are that the iPad 2 could be launched as early as February? Or at least announced.

http://www.gforgames.com/gadgets/news-ga...onth-3090/
Edited: 2011-01-11, 4:03 pm
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#13
It doesn't seem like this app has been mentioned - Midori http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/midori-ja...31773?mt=8

It allows you to look up words by typing/radicals/handwriting - finally!!!, plus there's an option for parsing a pasted text (which I find really useful). You can "bookmark" studied words and assign them to different lists, and later on email to your account.
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#14
I want to add another little gem for studying Japanese, or anything actually. It's called 'Streak'. This app basically is just a calendar application that allows you to put a cross over days when you do something towards something you want to achieve (pretty much a super simple measuring device). An example might be if you wanted to make sure you did your RTK or anki reviews and felt that measuring that would motivate you to work harder or, even better, more often (harder is not always better). You could put 'X's in on the days that you did the work and see your progress, or your winning streak, as you learn.

Khatz talks about this very idea in his speal on 'Victory Calendars'. See here.
Edited: 2011-04-16, 11:30 am
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#15
I quite like the look of ComicZeal. I have a few raws sitting around right now and I was thinking this could be a really useful way of making manga cards on the iPhone (or just reading manga).

I'll let you know how it works out.
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#16
Just got my iPad, so haven't got many yet:

AnkiMobile - of course
Wakaru
IBunko
Kotoba
RTK

But I'm on the lookout for more!

CJ

PS is the wiki page for iPad apps as well?
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#17
I'm hunting down apps at this very moment. Quite like the idea of Kanji in Context (iKIC) as my vocabulary needs a work out.

I think the applications on the Wiki pages are sorted by OS so the iPhone page is the place to look for / list iPad apps.

Also use the iPad to listen to podcasts of course.
Edited: 2011-09-11, 7:37 am
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#18
Sorry for the bump, I didn't want to make a new thread.

Change location on itunes to Japan, make a new Japanese account, and you're given a wide array of free games and entertainment apps made for Japanese people.

A fun way to improve your Japanese immersion.
Edited: 2012-08-28, 1:48 am
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#19
Though not technically a Japanese learning app, TuneIn Radio app allows you to listen to stations and podcasts of various languages (including Japanese). For those really into immersion, if your iPhone is set to Japanese, the app will also be in Japanese (like the menu and such)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tunein-ra...87775?mt=8
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