MaruMori.io & Kitsun.io - [UPDATE: ALL ABOARD THE N3 TRAIN] - Grammar SRS, Grammar Lessons, Reading Exercises, Vocabulary, Kanji and more!

2020-10-11


Time for a new update! This time the focus was mostly on the dictionary pages as they got a new design! Also got some other stuff coming up, more on that below the patch notes!


New Features:

  • Dictionaries - New design has been implemented!


Vocabulary result


Kanji result (Stroke order diagram image being broken is on the prio to-do list still)

  • Dictionaries - Added a CTRL+S hotkey to the default card popups for generating your cards more easily.

  • Kanji Dictionary - Now returns more than 1 result if you input a string with multiple Kanji in it. With a max of 5 Kanji (the first 5 it can find in the string).

  • Kanji Dictionary - Now strips away all non-kanji content from the search string in the background. Meaning you can just copy paste something like 갓道ćÆä½•ć§ć™ć‹ in it and it will return results for ę°“é“ä½• only (whereas previously it would fail to return any results).

  • Default Dictionary Popups - Now have the generate button fixed at the bottom of the popup. You no longer need to scroll down to generate your card.

  • Cards Management - Advanced search now lets you choose a specific field to search through. Defaulting to ā€œAllā€ fields.


Bugfixes:

  • Payment Page - Added something to provide a bit more feedback about why a payment might be declining in the background.

  • Decks - Inactive Decks now also show community feedback counts (if feedback is available).

  • Timezone setting - Fixed a small timezone bug where trailing whitespaces caused it to fail.


Extra:

Iā€™ve been working on rewriting the complete backend of Kitsun in Golang (a different programming language), and experimenting with a different database while at it. I plan on dedicating 1 day a week to the Golang rewrite for the next coming weeks, if possible.

Aside from that Iā€™ve been working on a new guide system that will explain to new users how Kitsun works by showing and explaining the actions they can take. I plan on adding these for not just the basic actions (creating a deck, creating cards, explaining SRS etc) but also for the more complex features such as the reader and Subs2Kitsun.

Hereā€™s a small concept sneak peak to give you an idea:


Note: the grey part will have gifs or images in it that showcase the action


On another note: Is anyone here well versed in Chinese that could answer a few questions for me? Iā€™ve been looking at implementing Chinese Dictionaries but I donā€™t know the difference between some of the options (mainly about Mandarin vs Cantonese). Would love some help with it :slight_smile:

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Wow. Your dictionaries look good. You are busy.

Just a little thing. There is a broken image icon in the Kanji dictionary screenshot. You may want to look at this.

What is the status on exporting clickable links to Kitsun?

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Thanks :blush:

The stroke order image being broken is noted in the line right below it. Itā€™s due to jisho.org serving those images from a http origin rather than https. A recent chrome update seems to actually block those images nowadays. Itā€™s on my todo list, but thanks though :smiley:

No changes yet. Will let you know once it works :slight_smile:

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What is it written in currently?

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Itā€™s currently written in Javascript with NodeJS (ExpressJS to be precise). Which is fine for now and the foreseeable future, but Go brings quite some benefits which make me want to switch to it eventually ^^

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Ah nice! I personally donā€™t have much experience with NodeJS, but Iā€™ve heard good things about Go (especially speeds). So that sounds like a good avenue to explore!

Hey sorry for the random question, but I looked at the website and couldnā€™t find an answerā€¦

Is Kitsun primarily directed towards language learning for now (most of the website and forums seems so)? How appropriate is it for other forms of learning, such as biology vocab or am I better off learning Anki? Does is have image-based cloze?

Sorry to be a pain, I just didnā€™t want to sign up in order to check since the trial is only two weeks and I didnā€™t want to kick off a trial before I have the time to explore it.

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You can import Anki decks into Kitsun. So while I think most users probably use it for language learning at the moment, you can certainly use it for other topics.

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Thanks for that! Ok, I guess Iā€™ll put off learning Anki for now, Iā€™ve just spent an afternoon trying to find out how to use it optimally (beyond using pre-made decks) but now have too many links open and feeling overwhelmed. I then saw that a number of users here have switched to kitsun. Iā€™ll put kitsun on the to do list :slight_smile:

Ultimately I want the WK experience but for other things than japanese, and it seems pretty hard to replicate.

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I lasted all of five minutes with Anki. I also found it overwhelming and the user experience was pretty bad. Iā€™ve found Kitsun to be much more accessible.

Kitsun does also have community decks (just like Anki), which is probably the closest youā€™ll get to WaniKani within Kitsun. Youā€™re never going to get something quite the same, but pre-made decks on Kitsun (from its community center or imported from Anki) are a step in the right direction at least.

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So I was just wondering to whom may read my message. If I finish WK theoretically next year and want to read a variety of mangaā€™s and light/web novels in Japanese and want to know the rest of the 10K vocabs.
Is Kitsun.io worth it?
I have already ordered 黒ē™½ć®ć‚¢ćƒ“ć‚§ć‚¹ć‚æćƒ¼, an LN I have been really wanting to read after I gain more vocab knowledge and after I finish Tobira japanese.
My problem with going onto another platform is that I love WKā€™s mnemonics method and I gave Torii SRS a try and honestly it doesnā€™t stick in my brain as Wanikani does.
Was just wondering other peopleā€™s Kitsun.io experience?
Thank you for reading my enquiry.

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Hi!

For now, the focus has mostly been on languages, with Japanese in particular due to most of the userbase coming from WK and due to my own goal of learning Japanese. Lately Iā€™ve been working on expanding into other languages and subjects by offering new tools (Russian inputs, upcoming Chinese/Korean dictionaries etc) and eventually want to expand into non-language subjects as well.

Like seanblue mentioned, you can import any anki deck or excelsheet/wordlist (through csv/txt/tsv) into Kitsun and start learning. Since the userbase is also mostly focused on languages, there arenā€™t many non-language decks in the community centre yet, so sadly that wouldnā€™t be an option for you yet.

It does not have image-based cloze type of questions, but it does have cards where you have to click/tap on specific spots of images (SVGs). You can find an example of that in one of the Geography decks made by Acm.


@anon70208943 Iā€™m the author so Iā€™m obviously biased, but I initially made Kitsun mostly for my own goal of learning Japanese vocabulary/extra kanji in an easy way, similar in feel to how WK works. It does not have a mnemonic system like WK does, although nothing is stopping anyone from creating such a deck and sharing it with others. The tools currently available (Reader, Subs2Kitsun, Dictionaries) are all aimed at making the process of creating cards while consuming native material, faster and easier.

I personally think that at the point where you learn from native materials, you have enough context that you donā€™t need mnemonics for vocabulary anymore.

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Thank you for the reply, so your opinion is that because by the time I have completed WK, I donā€™t really need mnemonics any longer because I have exposure over all of the kanji and also vocab thatā€™s presented on there already is that what you mean?
I have finished GENKI II, but my vocab and kanji understanding/comprehension is very poor at the moment, so I would like to improve those aspects first before I start reading native stuff.
I think reading using Fugurigana is very painful to do without knowing the kanji/vocabā€™s meaning and reading.
Thatā€™s my reason for wanting to know all of the core 10K vocab I guess.
But thank you so much for the info. :slight_smile:

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I think you have it backwards. It is usually recommended to start reading native material early on to accelerate the learning process. Waiting to learn more before reading native stuff takes longer. The trick is to start with easy stuff like NHK Web Easy. The rikaikun browser extension helps a lot because it gives an instant translation of unknown vocabā€¦ When a word occurs often enough you end up learning it. When I encounter some unknow grammar point I search it on Bunpro. This feature of Bunpro is available in the free version if I recall correctly. Google search for grammar point works too. It will unearth relevant blog posts by Maggy Sensei and others. This way you can start reading native stuff early on and learn on the fly.

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Although, I am aware of that. I feel uncomfortable reading things early on because, I want to understand what I read beforehand and looking up every kanji I can come across is such a waste of time and you delay the inevitable.
I think reading when you have the foundation of both grammar and kanji just makes the entire experience much better and satisfying IMO.

This is why I suggest rikaikun. You wonā€™t have to lookup every kanji if you use this.

You overestimate what you need. You have finished Genki II and reached level 6 of Wanikani. This is enough foundation to start reading NHK Web Easy with rikaikun. Just try what I suggest to see how it works out. I think you will like it.

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Not so much this, but rather that through the rest of the sentence (context), you are often able to figure out what the unknown vocab means. Next to that (in my case) you often remember vocabulary and itā€™s definitions/usage better through seeing it in context, rather than learning it standalone with mnemonics.

Encountering vocab in native material will give you a better understanding of how certain words are used and how they might differ from similar meaning words.

You could still make your own mnemonics based on the WK radicals and such if youā€™d want to of course.

You could take a look at the reader functionality in Kitsun. It focuses on minimizing the time spent on having to look vocab/kanji up and generating flashcards. You can paste in any article/book (or pick one of the short folklore stories already shared on the website) and click on words to see a bunch of useful information (and generate cards where needed). I think it is pretty beginner friendly :slight_smile:

Hereā€™s a short video showing it in action:

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I have indeed tried what you have suggested and I do really appreciate your suggestion. But it just honestly doesnā€™t work for me in my opinion. I feel a bit weird and uncomfortable doing that.
Despite the fact that I have completed GENKIā€™s I and II, I really wanna go through the second GENKI text book again because I feel like it helps and gives me a stronger memory.
But thank you for the suggestion. I am not trying to sound condescending or anything. I hope you understand.

Alright, I see. Thank you very much for the tip though. I might give your application a try in a couple of weeks later :slight_smile:

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I understand. Everyone is different. If you tried it out and it didnā€™t work then thatā€™s it.

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I think itā€™s the greatest, canā€™t recommend it enough. It has complete autonomy like Anki without the headaches and frustration (plus a modern/pleasing aesthetic that is an enjoyable experience to use). I think you will enjoy the reader tool, as it allows both reading practice and a simple way to create cards for you to study later and gives a quick analysis on reading level of the material. And since WK misses alot of basic vocab (or even just hiragana/katakana only vocab), I think you can find benefits just with this alone.

Vocab decks are much easier after going through the WK grind plus you can add en->jp with your cards. But there is so much functionality, so you can practice listening comprehension and grammarā€¦Subs2Kitsun is great as well. And many community decks are very polished due to the feedback system that is set up (and customize what card you want to use). Plus there is still Anki deck import if you really want it.

Just a warning, given your WK level you are probably not in the full swing of SRS here so your time dedication to multiple SRS can be tricky. However @prouleau recently made a great tool that allows additional study approaches with WK material that is Kitsun-friendly. For myself, I do Kitsun just when I have the time but I ensure to clear WK reviews daily.

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