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I am working on an online service that helps foreigners to learn Japanese by reading native material. I have been frustrated while learning this language becau

by Seb-C 7y ago

I am working on an online service that helps foreigners to learn Japanese by reading native material. I have been frustrated while learning this language because the Kanjis makes smooth reading almost impossible, and for me it has always been the fastest way to fluency in a language. I am building a browser extension that will help anyone to read and browse the Japanese internet. Here in Tokyo we are not quarantined, but most events have been canceled and I have been remote working for almost one month now. So I made a good progress.

fataliss 7y ago
I just finished learning hiragana! Looking forward to your extension!
- Seb-C 7y ago
  Thank you! I do not have a website yet, but I will ping you as soon as I have one (I also want to have a newsletter before release). I am not sure how suited my tool will be for a beginner at first. It will probably be more useful for someone who already know the basics of the grammar (JLPT N3~N4 maybe). But I'd definitely love to make it useful for beginners too!
tillcarlos 7y ago
Is it like readlang or different? Do you have anything online I can check out? email me if you want. (Background: made a rails6 app for learning vietnamese and it looks similar. my main problem was to nail down the text to match the student’s level).
- Seb-C 7y ago
  Thank you. I did not know readlang, but my project is different because I want to customize the help given depending on the user. Also, I plan to focus on the challenges inherent to Japanese rather than extending my tool to other languages. The Japanese grammar being simple and regular, I am quite optimistic that I can show help about it without relying on raw translations. One challenge of Japanese is that a raw translation does not help to learn the readings/pronunciation and Kanjis, so it is in my experience almost completely useless for learning. I also do not want to provide contents. I want the user to choose whatever he likes on internet (but I may recommend external interesting pages).
elric 7y ago
That's a great idea. Please set up some kind of landing page or newsletter.

by Seb-C 7y ago

fataliss 7y ago

I just finished learning hiragana! Looking forward to your extension!

Seb-C 7y ago
Thank you! I do not have a website yet, but I will ping you as soon as I have one (I also want to have a newsletter before release). I am not sure how suited my tool will be for a beginner at first. It will probably be more useful for someone who already know the basics of the grammar (JLPT N3~N4 maybe). But I'd definitely love to make it useful for beginners too!

tillcarlos 7y ago

Is it like readlang or different? Do you have anything online I can check out? email me if you want. (Background: made a rails6 app for learning vietnamese and it looks similar. my main problem was to nail down the text to match the student’s level).

Seb-C 7y ago
Thank you. I did not know readlang, but my project is different because I want to customize the help given depending on the user. Also, I plan to focus on the challenges inherent to Japanese rather than extending my tool to other languages. The Japanese grammar being simple and regular, I am quite optimistic that I can show help about it without relying on raw translations. One challenge of Japanese is that a raw translation does not help to learn the readings/pronunciation and Kanjis, so it is in my experience almost completely useless for learning. I also do not want to provide contents. I want the user to choose whatever he likes on internet (but I may recommend external interesting pages).

elric 7y ago

That's a great idea. Please set up some kind of landing page or newsletter.