Hi,
I am kind of new here but I came across something that I found helpful and I thought it might come in handy for other folks too. Whenever I do a new lesson I find that sometimes I find myself skipping over some of the context examples because I am not always able to recall the correct reading for some of the Kanji. Sound familiar? I have been wishing that audio files would be included along with the context examples. I had the bright idea of searching for a Japanese text to speech converter so I did a google search and found this website
You can copy Japanese text, paste it into a window and hit the read button and it will speak the text for you. Best of all it is free! On one hand I feel like I am cheating a bit because I should look up the readings I have forgotten. But considering that you can look up a reading if you get the meaning (and vice versa) it seems like a certain amount of that is OK. And since I am trying to learn Kanji to help my very basic Japanese, it seems like getting someone to read things out loud will help me a lot. Anyway have a great day everybody.
You could try installing the Advanced Context Sentences user script. Then you can have the context sentences read directly from WK and save some steps and time.
Just click the speaker at the end of the context sentence.
Additionally this script can further help with understanding the examples as it will automatically highlight all kanji that are taught in WK, show via colour which ones you have already studied vs,. those yet to be encountered and provide a pop-up if you hover your mouse over the kanji and show (meaning, readings plus some other stuff) info about the kanji.
If you noticed that in my screen capture the English translation is hidden, that is the Wanikani Hide Context Sentence script at work. To reveal the translation hover mouse over it. I find this script very useful as I find it impossible to not see/read the English translation if it is there. Much easier and more elegant that trying to hold my finger over it
Hi
Wow thanks for that. I am not especially well versed with computers but I will see if I can’t figure it out. And I have some excellent IT folks who I am sure can help me. Thanks again!
Jim
If you go the “API and Third-Party Apps” category here on the WK forum, you will find a pretty detailed instruction/walk-through of adding user scripts for WK. Here is one such post from that category
Hi
Thanks again for your helpful advice. It took me awhile to figure it out but eventually I managed to install Tampermonkey followed by the Wanikani open framework and the Advanced Context sentences 2 script. At first they only worked sporadically though but I think that at last I have figured out that problem. So I suppose I should be grateful that I can now hear the correct readings for the example sentences. Oh and I especially like how I can hover over individual Kanji to see the readings! But I am hoping that you or somebody might know if it is possible to adjust the speed when it reads the context sentences? I’d really like to be able to slow it down so I could focus on each Kanji as it goes by. Obviously it is important to be able to hear them at the speed of a native speaker. But if it is possible to hear them slowed down a few times I think it would really help. Any advice suggestions or ideas are most welcome. Thanks again for your help.
Jim
I am not aware of any way to control the speed of the generated audio with this user script. The settings for the script itself does not have any setting for speed control.
I do believe that both of the back end voice synthesis engines that the script can use do offer a setting for controlling speed via their APIs, and if that is correct, then it is something that should be doable (I am saying this without having read the script source code). You could always drop a suggestion/request into the forum post for the script in the event that the maintainer may be interested. Rather than just being able to set the voice speed in general, I think it would be most useful if such a setting came with a second “play audio” icon so that you can have both available. E.g. One for play at normal speed, one for play at half (or whatever you set it to) speed.
Hi,
Thanks again for your helpful advice. I am afraid that my computer skills are rather limited so I will have to hope that I can get some advice back in the forums. But even so the scripts that I have are extremely helpful so I am sure that I can get by with what I have. Thanks again!
Jim
Hi,
First of all thanks for your help and support. I am not sure if you are someone who works for Wanikani or if you are simply another member of the community. But I thought I would reach out to tell you about something peculiar that has been happening to me. Not a huge disaster mind you but something that could be a problem. I use a MacBook air running IOS 11.17.10. I use the Safari web browser and my home page is set to Google. Starting a few weeks ago somthing strange began to happen. Whenever I open the browser and do a Google search I get the results but I have been switched over to Yahoo. I did some searching online and this is a fairly common problem caused by a bit of malware that diverts your results to yahoo. Now this might be a minor annoyance or it could be a symptom of something else. I consulted with the IT folks I work with and they recommended that I download a program called malwarebytes (free trial!) and run it to see if it could identify the source of the problem. It did not find anything though. Next I went to the Safari preferences, then to the privacy settings and removed all of the cookies I had stored up. The problem went away but returned soon after. I think it may have come from the extensions I installed to give me audio readings for the context examples. One was Tamper Monkey which helps install extensions, and the others were Advanced Context Sentence 2, and Wanikani Open framework. I believe both came from a website called greasyfork. Since then instead of removing all cookies I have only removed the ones from greasyfork but I havent been able to run any testing to see if I have isolated the problem. So I just wanted to let you know in case there may be some sort of malware involved. I’m not sure who else I should contact but if you have any suggestions I’d appreciate it.
Jim
I am just a WK user, I have no affiliation with Tofugu/WK . I rarely use MAC OS or Safari (unless I am working on a project where that is a target platform) and have not done so recently.
From you description it sounds like the Yahoo redirect virus is the culprit. I never rule anything out unless I have done a thorough investigation myself, but I am inclined to think that is doubtful that Tampermonkey or either of the WK specific scripts is the source as all of those have been in use by 100s of folks active here on the forums and as far as I can recall, no issues have been experience or reported. But if I have spare time will look to see if I can find anything.
Hi
Thanks for getting back to me. And upon reflection the only reason I was blaming greasyfork was because their extensions were the only things I can remember installing recently. As I said when it comes to computers I am strictly a user. It reminds me of something Carl Sagan said about computers. It was something to the effect of how in the not too distant future our society will become dependent on technology that only a handful of us understand. And I am afraid that I am one of the ignorant masses. I have always meant to take a few courses in computer science but at the moment my guitar lessons and WaniKani are eating up all of my spare time. I am a professor at a university in America and I tell my students that I think that one of the things we desire most as humans (aside from fulfilling our needs for food shelter and companionship) is new information and experiences. If only I had more time I would spend it in school! Sadly most of them are too young to understand. Anyway thanks again for your helpful advice.
Jim
Hi,
Thanks for asking but I am afraid the problem persists. I can make it go away for a period of time by cleaning out all of my cookies and the clearing my entire browsing history. But it keeps coming back. I had a short conversation with one of the computer science faculty at my university who specializes in cybersecurity and he told me that he has had the same problem but he uses the Chrome browser. From what I have read it can infect pretty much every browser. Anyway, he was able to get rid of it by deleting his cookies and a few other things. But it was a very brief conversation as a meeting was breaking up. It is gone at the moment but I expect it will pop up again. When I have some time I will check the various Apple bulletin boards and see what I can find out.
But I do have some good news to share. My wife and I are going to spend our Christmas holiday in Japan visiting with her mother. She is a wonderful mother in law and she has always been very fond of me. She is also a bit of a “crazy old lady”, but in a good sense so it is a lot of fun to be with her. Hopefully there will be a sumo tournament going on that we can watch together. It is one of our favorite things to do. And we can check up on her to make sure she is ok. We are talking about moving to Japan when we retire which is one of the reasons I joined Wanikani. This will be my first visit since my kanji studies began and I am curious to see how much I will be able to read. I started in July and I just reached level 8. I don’t know if that is especially rapid or excessively slow or somewhere in between and it doesn’t really matter anyway. But I am committed and assuming I live long enough I hope to eventually complete all 60 levels. I used to say that everyday in Japan was an all day kana lesson so I am looking forward to a lot of Kanji on this trip. Have a great Thanksgiving!
Jim
I may have some suggestions for you, will have time in a day or two to check on some details before sharing.
Hopefully you will also be here over the New Years holiday period given that Christmas is not a holiday here, but Jan 1 - 3 is the big family time holiday. We (my wife and I) go visit her mother and also her brother and his family during shougatsu. It has replaced Christmas for me since moving here many years ago. However, we (wife and I) do follow the Kentucky Christmas tradition here, we have a complete collection of the decorative plates for the past 8 years. We have already submitted and paid for our order for this year. We were able to get an evening pick-up on the 24th, which is the date we aim for.
I am also a sumo fan. The last tournament of 2024 just ended today. The next tournament starts January 12th, so if if you here long enough you will be able to watch it. Have you had a chance to attend a tournament in the past?
It is everywhere here. But be warned, it is not all in the exact same font that WK uses (bad inside WK forum joke for anyone that saw those threads back when WK changed the font they use)
Thank you. Living in Japan, Thanksgiving is not a holiday nor something that is observed here (other than by some expats of course).
Being a Canadian, “my Thanksgiving” was last month
Having said that, I will actually be going for a Thanksgiving dinner this week. There are a few places, if you know where to look, that do put on a traditional (or reasonable attempt at) dinner. Those that do, do so for the US Thanksgiving date. In recent years I have found a place that does an event for the Canadian Thanksgiving date (the Saturday closest to it) but since I have been going to the same place for over 15 years now and go with an American friend, I just keep following my own tradition and have my Canadian dinner on the US date.
