JapAnki👹

Learn Japanese N5 vocabularies and do quizzes on CLI!

• Installation
  • Build from source
• Introduction
• Features and usage
  • List catories
    • Example usage
  • Show Japanese vocabularies
    • Example
  • Quiz yourself
    • Example usage
  • Manage study progress
    • Example usage
  • Display all vocabs
• Why doing this?
• Preparing the data

Installation

Build from source

• Clone the repository.

• Have latest Rust installed, build with cargo build and obtain the binary.

• You will also need to have the vocab csv file and progress .yaml file at $HOME/.japanki. Copy ./.japanki directory in this repo to your home directory.

• cd to the binary directory, usually at ./target/debug/, and run ./japanki with arguments (see below for usage).

• Optionally if you wish to have japanki installed on system startup, copy the binary to /usr/local/bin.

This above steps are outlined by a very simple install script. Run sudo ./install.sh (Sudo required as it adds to sudo directories).

Introduction

• This simple CLI let's you study and memorize japanese N5 vocabs in terminal, like this:

>> japanki show all

Reading in vocab database...

====== Atomic 6 | Level 1 =====
～かた | ~ kata
Meaning: how to ...
Example: つかいかたを おしえてください。Please teach me how to use it.

> Show next ▷

====== Unit 1 | Level 1 =====
～えん | ～円 | ~ en
Meaning: ... yen
Example: これは 10,000円です。This is 10,000 yen.
...

• Or you can do quiz:

>> japanki quiz all --kanji

====== Unit 0 | Level 1 =====
Hiragana: ??? | ～駅 | Romaji: ???
Meaning: ... station

> Romaji is: eki
✅ Correct! It is ～えき | ～駅 | ~ eki

> Next question ▷

====== Nature 78 | Level 1 =====
Hiragana: ??? | 雨 | Romaji: ???
Meaning: rain

> Romaji is: ami
❌ Oops! It should be あめ | 雨 | Ame

> ✏️ Correction: ame

• You can manage your progress, level up when you are familiar with current sets of vocabs:

>> japanki progress now

=== Current progress ===
Unit          Level  1 / 10
Atomic        Level  3 / 10
Time          Level  2 / 10
People        Level  4 / 10
Places        Level  5 / 10
Verb          Level  1 / 10

Features and usage

List catories

Example usage

japanki list   # list all available categories

# Available categories:
#  - Unit
#  - Atomic
#  - Time
#  - People
#  - Places
#  - Verb
#  - Adjadv
#  - Color
#  - Direction
#  - Nature
#  - Food
#  - Body
#  - Home
#  - Intangible
#  - Activity
#  - Wearables
#  - Manmade
#  - Stationery
#  - Transport
#  - Sentence

Show Japanese vocabularies

Example

# show vocabs in all categories
japanki show all

# show within the verb/time/unit category
japanki show some verb time unit

# show vocabs that involves kanji
japanki show some verb time unit --kanji

# no progress filtering when showing vocabs
japanki show some verb time unit --kanji --no-progress

Quiz yourself

Example usage

# quiz with vocabs in all categories
japanki quiz all

# quiz within the verb/time/unit category
japanki quiz some verb time unit

# quiz vocabs that involves kanji
japanki quiz some verb time unit --kanji

# quiz for meaning of vocabs; no model answer checks
japanki quiz some verb time unit --meaning

# no progress filtering when quiz
japanki quiz some verb time unit --kanji --no-progress

Manage study progress

Example usage

# show current levels
japanki progress now

# level up when you are familiar with current level vocabs
japanki progress up

# level down when you feel bad
japanki progress down

# reset trackings
japanki progress reset

Display all vocabs

# display all
japanki display all

# display selected categories
japanki display some verb time unit

Why doing this?

While there are plenty of resources for learning Japanese, still, none of them satisfy my very pedantic needs:

• I do not want textbook or videos because the pace is too slow.
• I do not want to learn vocabs in alphabetical order which most learning app does.
• I do not want to learn it in multiple-choice question format as it can give an illusion of fully knowing the vocabs. I want to learn by filling in the blanks.
• I want to learn vocabs in a flash-card / SRS manner (Hence the name JapAnki !)
• I want to have customized control over the database of vocabs.
• I want to do it on a computer like a software engineer.
• I want to learn Rust along the way.

The app focuses solely in learning vocabs and kanji. Of course grammar and listening plays a huge role in language learning, but I have already found some other apps and articles that suits my style of learning.

Preparing the data

The list of Japanese N5 vocabularies is obtained from 9elt's project jlpt-n5-word-list with further processing with basic Python:

• Converting into .csv format
• Adding romaji for learning using Cutlet
• Manually deciding a category for grouping of vocabularies as I don't enjoy learning vocabs in alphabetical order.
• Add level tag to each vocabs by roughly binning vocabs in each categories into 10 levels in alphabetical order

The data processing is a one-time process and therefore excluded from the repository.