Studying with your iPhone

It’s been a while since I’ve found some good Japanese apps. There’s a wide variety out there in the app store, but which ones are good? Which ones to choose? Well, begin with the free ones I always say! Here’s what has it made to my 日本語 (nihongo) folder recently.

小学生手書き漢字ドリール

This app is fantastic for practising writing kanji. It is often easier to remember how to read a kanji, but when it comes to writing it, it’s not rare to have your mind go completely blank. There are many apps that use flash cards etc to test you on whether or not you remember the kanji, but not many that actually test your writing. So I was really happy when my friend recommended this one to me. I’ve only just started using it, and at the moment I have the kanji level of a 6 year old ^^; ＿|￣|○ でも、頑張ります！

Kanji OK

This is a little more along the lines of what I was just saying: recognizing kanji and knowing how to read it. It’s broken up into 5 levels and is a great way to learn the different readings of kanji, with the added bonus of increasing your vocab. Plus you get compliments like “you’re a genius aren’t you”「あなたは天才だね」\(//∇//)\ まあそう言ったら… \(//∇//)\

Study Chat

This last app, I don’t even know what to think of myself. The description puts it as “Practice REAL conversational Japanese”. But all I can say is I hope “REAL” Japanese conversations don’t involve a boy coming up to you saying: “Hello. You are cute. I like cute girls. Bye.” If the main goal of the lesson was to learn the word “kawaii”, if you’re into Japan, you will surely have learnt this word already! But anyways, however dodgy the conversations may seem, it’s still a fun app to use, and it does actually test your Japanese. Is the boy saying you’re “kawaii” or “kirei”. Don’t get this ナンパ (nanpa- smooth talker) wrong if you to want score more points 😉 (excuse the double meaning).