Would you consider offering some promo codes to the PH community? I'd love to try it, even at $0.99, but $3.99 is sort of beyond the threshold for apps for me. Looks and sounds cool.
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@rueter hate to be "that guy" but please just buy it. $3.99 is completely reasonable if you're trying to learn Japanese.
@komocode@rueter@suleimenov I think it's more principle than price. For me - someone who has studied Japanese like crazy over the years to reach fluency and isn't going to use the app for studying, I'd love to try the app and give some feedback, but I definitely don't feel like giving my time + full price. I guess it depends on if the goal on Product Hunt is to drum up sales or get user feedback from your peers.
And when the creator says he "wanted to share what we’ve built so far," it doesn't sound like a finished product.
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@sean_casey@rueter@suleimenov of course, as I said, $3.99 is reasonable if you're trying to learn Japanese. it seems that you already know Japanese so you're better off filling out the form as the website suggests to potentially get a free code.
I bought the app and it's pretty much full featured. I'm assuming they're just going to add improvements and additional features along the way.
@sean_casey Hi Sean. It's actually a full-featured product (w/ all the functionality listed under current features section). We already have the product roadmap for at least the next 6 months, so it'll be majorly improving. Email info [at] zerotoonelabs.com for the promo code. Will be great to hear your feedback.
Hi, Product Hunt. The creators of Kanji Ninja here.
When I studied Japanese at Princeton, in addition to the class textbook I used two separate books just to learn reading and drawing kanjis: ‘Remembering the Kanji’ (James Heisig) and Kanji Pict-O-Graphix (Michael Rowley). I found it hard (and boring) to do it with books and started the search for the best Kanji learning app in the App Store. None of the apps I tried created the daily habit and they weren’t fun to use.
Kanji Ninja is our attempt to make learning Japanese characters fun and easy to maintain (as a daily habit). We still have a long way to get there, but wanted to share what we’ve built so far.
CURRENT FEATURES
- Learn kanji, the characters of written Japanese, on the go through engaging mini-sessions where you learn 3 characters at a time. Both stroke order and meaning.
- The built-in optical character recognition (OCR) engine can check whether you drew characters correctly or not.
- To help with memorization, we first show you the stroke order, then assist you when you’re drawing the kanji for the first time. Then we expect you can recall it on your own. The blank screen shouldn’t scare you ;) Don’t worry if you get it wrong. We’ll hold your hands until you master them all!
- All the kanjis are organized by grade. You can’t move on to the next grade until you finish the current one.
- The ‘panikku’ (‘panic’) game where you have to recall & draw as many characters as possible in 40 seconds.
- The adaptive engine tracks your progress and prompts you to review kanjis at just the right time.
- Help your ninja pulse reach the new skies with every kanji learned and every ‘panikku' game played!
- Compete against other learners around the world on the global leaderboard!
NEAR FUTURE (a few exciting features we’re currently working on)
- Gameplay so that you learn Japanese characters the true Fruit Ninja style. With different weapons (katana, swords, knives, etc.) and different materials (leather, paper, wood, skin, etc.) to draw on.
- QuizUp style battles with friends to memorize the meaning of different kanjis
- Badges, achievements, score multipliers in the ‘panic’ mode.
Become the Kanji Ninja (漢字忍者)!
Looking forward to hear what you think.
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@suleimenov I'll download this right away. I have been studying Japanese on and off for several years now and I have been using all of the available tools online. I am currently using Wanikani for Kanji and words, but it has the same problem of the Heisig books...it's boring like hell.
@suleimenov just bought it and think its ok, however can you please add the hiragana to the kanji and no just the english translation?!? also i noticed at first you get full help using the background lines and then at the second test you are completely dumped. it would be great if there was some help like showing a few strokes and having to remember the others first, before remembering everything on a blank slate...
@kloseline Awesome feedback. Thank you! 1) Will definitely add hiragana (both on-yomi & kun-yomi). 2) Will make the 2nd test easier (w/ a few strokes), the 3rd test will be blank slate. Meanwhile yesterday we sent a new update (should be in the App Store early next week). Now all the kanjis are divided into 17 levels (instead of 6 grades). This makes every level smaller and much easier to complete. Now you can skip kanjis you have trouble completing due to our pesky (& strict) OCR. Characters for ’sky’, ‘measure’, and ‘point’ gave us nightmares :)
@kay0stheory At the moment we're just focusing on drawing & meaning. We're thinking of spinning a separate app for both Simplified & Traditional Chinese though.
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This looks amazing! Do you incorporate Heisig technique for memorisation as in creating a story for kanji? I use kohii kanji to get other people stories which helps me memorise much quicker.
@christinavulpes Thank you! Yeah, the 'sky' kanji is hard to pass (but possible!) due to the OCR library we're using. We're working on the feature to skip kanjis users have trouble completing. It'll be available in the next update which is scheduled for next week. Let me know how it goes.
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