I've been trying to edit my first post, but it keeps coming up with some error, so hence posting a new message. Here is a brief review of the apps I've got now.
wwwJDic
Cost: Free
Pros: Free, comprehensive, easy to use, multiple input styles
Cons: Needs to connect to the net, results are sometimes way off.
A front-end for the wwwJDic website by Jim Breen, so you know its pretty comprehensive already. A must have for anyone serious about Japanese language study - if you don't get another (paid) dictionary. The design is simple and minimal, making it very easy to navigate. Input can be romaji, kana or even finger spelt kanji - for the last one to work you must enable the Chinese keyboard under International keyboards. Unfortunately this type of input is not very accurate, perhaps because my fingers are too thick, or maybe I'm still getting stroke order wrong?!
Kanji Flip
Cost: 350 yen
Pros: Great for studying for the JLPT, uses SRS
Cons: Seems to be missing kanji, SRS system is a little odd
This app uses the KANJIDIC dictionary file, and focuses explicitly on learning the JLPT kanji characters; as well as the bonus of having a section for hiragana and katakana. It's a flashcard app; not unlike this website or Anki, however the SRS side of things doesn't seem to be trumpeted much, so not sure how good/accurate the algorithm is. As it's targetting the JLPT, the main page is divided into 5 sections - Hiragana & Katakana at the top, then Level 4 (with 86 Kanji), Level 3 (246 additional Kanji), Level 2 (986 additional Kanji) and finally Level 1 (2230 additional Kanji). You simply choose which level you wish to study for, and go from there.
One odd point is that progress from studying previous levels is NOT carried over, so basically if you compared it to this site, it would mean once you load in more kanji characters, your older reviews which WERE in box 4+ are brought back to box 1. This seems like a huge waste of time, and seems counter productive to the entire SRS system itself.
Another point is that the Kanji numbers seem less if you compare them to Peter van der Woude's JLPT study page, where it's 103 Kanji for Level 4, 181 for Level 3 (for a new total of 284) and an additional 739 for Level 2. He doesn't provide study supplements for Level 1, so I can't compare it.
All in all it's a relatively fair price for an app which has no equivalent at the moment (unless you download a flip card app and make your own decks). The design is intuitive if a little gaudy, but works well.
Japanese Flip
Cost: 600 yen
Pros: Useful tool to have for students of the JLPT
Cons: Isn't all encompassing so price-tag might be unjustified for some
Created by the same guy who did Kanji Flip (see review above), the layout of the design is almost identical, making it a breeze to navigate and use if you already have the other app. Once again it's split into 5 catagories, specifically targetting study for the JLPT, but this time focusing on words, so it mixes kanji and hiragana/katakana. At the top are 415 words for Level 4, 910 additional words for Level 3, 3738 additional words for Level 2 and 6000 additional words for Level 1.
The last category is "Add your own words", which I'll get to later.
Once again it uses the system whereupon when you change levels it doesn't remember what your progress was with words from the previous levels that you studied for and passed, and therefore treats them as new. The designer seems to think this is helpful for the learning process, but it seems counter productive to the SRS system.
The word lists themselves see ok, comprehensive but not comprehensive enough for the hard-core student. I would recommend this app as another "tool in the arsenal", rather than the be-all-and-end-all.
The section to add your own words is a great addition, however it is also a little flawed, as there is no choice which JLPT level to put the words into. So for example if you are studying JLPT Level 2, then you decide to add some new words that you learned from your Japanese friend, those words will be added to the Level 2 stack - and they won't necessarily be anywhere near the top of the stack. This is both a good and bad thing, so I won't go into it further at this point.
Last edited by Sevenhelmets (2008 September 07, 10:37 am)
