MaruMori.io & Kitsun.io - [New Update: MaruDex OCR Lookup Tool Teaser!] Grammar SRS, In-Depth Grammar Lessons, Reading Exercises, Vocabulary, Kanji and more!

[neicul]

N2 Content Drop

Hey all! Another N2 content drop has landed in the desert and is ready for your careful inspection. Just be careful because we may have also accidentally dropped a few grammar bombs. To disarm these, you have to use the correct “their/they’re/there”, in context, three times. To re-arm them, you have to use は or が correctly, three times. Or was it the other way around… Oh dear.

In this week’s batch, we’ve got grammar lessons such as ～て{以来|いらい}・てこのかた, fancy “since”s, ～に先立ち for “in advance of; prior to”, and ～をめぐって for when we need to argue about something.

And among this week’s vocabulary offerings are words such as 華々しい (“brilliant”!), 監視 (“monitoring”), and 酸素 (“oxygen”). Then, practice recent vocab and grammar in a reading exercise featuring a year’s worth of goals, a business email circulating through the MaruMori Architecture firm, and the adventures of Cookie the cat!

The N2 lessons are really starting to pile up, so if you’ve been slacking on your adventure progress, maybe it’s time to kick things into gear? Maybe an encouraging snack is in order? Either way,

Happy studies!

[Korastra]

@neicul
Getting some weird problem with Kitsun today. I was able to do reviews up until around 11 AM JST, but then suddenly it logged me out and I haven’t been able to log back in. It won’t let me log in on my computer or my phone. I’m using a MacBook and an iPhone with safari.

Here’s some screen shots of what’s going on

[Korastra]

Follow-up: Tried it on chrome and same result.

[Cathm2]

I’m getting a similar error. Came here to search if it was just me!

[Korastra]

Good to know it’s not just me

[neicul]

Looks like Kitsun’s DB went down while I was asleep, and didn’t trigger a server restart automatically Just woke up and got it up and running again though!

Sorry for the inconvenience!

[Korastra]

It’s cool thanks for the fix!

Though now I have to do my evening reviews

[neicul]

N2 Content Drop

It’s time for another N2 content drop, and it’s also time for an important announcement: you are nearing the camels.

I know they look cute, but don’t be fooled. My advice is: don’t feed the camels, don’t pet the camels, don’t attempt to brush the camels, don’t talk to the camels, don’t smile at the camels, and don’t look at the camels. Just pretend the camels aren’t there, to be honest. But also remember they’re there because you might need to run away and/or play dead if necessary.

In this week’s content drop, we’ve got critical and indefatigable grammar such as ～にせよ・にしろ for “whether (or not)” statements, ～といった for a fancy “such as”, and ～からといって, for when you need to tell your friend that just because they know all the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s We are Never Ever Getting Back Together, doesn’t mean they’re qualified to host the Country Music Awards.

What’s more, this batch features a mouth-watering cultural lesson that is all about everyone’s favorite (I checked) Japanese food, ramen! You might think you know everything there is to know about this noodly dish already, but at a reading time of 26 minutes, I’m sure you’ll find some new and exciting bits of chashu. Uhh, I mean, info.

For vocab, we’ve got words like 成長 “growth”, 冷房 “air conditioner”, and 生命 “life”. Look at all those strokes! That’s how you know they’re N2 vocab. Then, practice your recent grammar and vocab in this week’s reading, which is filled with misinterpretations, pastries, and life-or-death decisions.

That’s all for now,

Happy studies! and watch out for those camels…

[neicul]

Sharing (Community) Study Lists, SL item management changes and more!

Hey everyone!

A very exciting new update went live a few days ago! Namely, one that not only brings you a way to grab study lists shared by the community, but also publish your own lists to share with the rest of the community!

Let’s dive into it!

Community Study Lists (Lists shared by you, or the rest of the community!)

That’s right! You can now publish lists to share them with the rest of the MaruMori Community! Or you can grab one shared by someone else, straight from the Community Page of the Premade Study Lists Section. Clickie here to check

https://data.marumori.io/images/changelog/PPSSr93aaw8F-aP2ZOIRnaXdE-syo4gnTCOMpF.png(image larger than 4 MB)

Grabbing a study list is as easy as clicking on the Study List and clicking on the “Get Study List” button. As with all premade study lists, this means it will get added with a default of 10 new lessons per day. Be sure to adjust this number if needed!

https://data.marumori.io/images/changelog/aQT6kMCiWPQq-qDWbUVm3uYCK-Y3HpsSwRu70z.png(image larger than 4 MB)

Now, as for sharing your Study Lists with the rest of the community. You can do so by going to the Study List that you wish to share → Edit Study List button → Open Community Publishing Modal

This opens another modal, in which you can write a little description for the study list and then hit “Publish” or “Push Update,” depending on whether you have already published the Study List or not.

As you might have guessed, changes you make to the Study List are not published automatically to the Community version of it. You will need to manually update the Community version through the above-mentioned “Push Update” button. This was done to give some extra control over when content gets updated for everyone using the Community version, making it so that you can edit things without impacting their studies.

One caveat to be aware of is that you can not delete published Study Lists. But you can of course, always adjust your own daily lessons to 0 to not have to study it yourself anymore.

We’ve also set a few limits in place to ensure at least a little bit of quality:

• Must have a description
• Must have at least 20 items
• The max amount of items is 10k.

Aside from that, we sort based on the number of users who are actively using the list by default. So the most popular ones get to be on top. Hopefully making it easy to pick out the popular study lists!

We can’t wait to see what you all will share with the rest of the community! Perhaps a grammar study list for a specific textbook? A frequency list for anime? A study list for a specific game? The possibilities are endless!

P.S. Some of our lovely supporters have already been publishing some study lists after we announced the feature in our supporter-only Discord channel. If you also wish to join and get early access or information about new features, be sure to join our Discord and then type /verify in chat to get your corresponding supporter roles (if you have a paid subscription or lifetime account). Those roles give you access to a super secret supporter-only channel where we sometimes post updates about new things before they go live. For the invite link, check the top of this page!

Other New Features

Guess what, we’re not done yet! We also have a few other smaller features and bug fixes!

• Adventure - Grammar Lessons - The Grammar Lessons where you learn Hiragana are now accompanied by Native speaker audio!

• Study Lists - Manage Items Table - The item management table for study lists has been revamped! It now makes better use of vertical space, allowing the same table to be used effectively on mobile devices as well. That’s right! Easy management of items on mobile (website) now too!

• Conjugation Trainer - Removed top spacing for mobile devices to ensure the input and prompts are always visible, even when the device’s keyboard covers the screen.

• Statistics - Streak - Unlock tiles now count for your adventure heatmap.

Bugfixes:

• SRS - (Flip) Buttons Mode - Now no longer zooms the page on mobile if you tap too fast.

• SRS - Flip Buttons Mode - No longer plays audio twice when buttons mode and lightning mode are both active.

[neicul]

N2 Content Drop

The time has come to don your cowboy boots and/or hat, grab your lasso, and get ready to round up some grammar! Yes, that’s right, the first “round-up” lessons of the N2 region have arrived! Yeeeee-HAW!

These lessons are our way of comparing and contrasting similar grammar that you’ve learned throughout your recent lessons, since N2 introduces a lot of very similar points. We hope you enjoy them and find them useful! And if not, you can just… skip them. See if I care!

What’s more, this batch also features the first instalment of our 慣用句 (“expressions”) series, where we cover common Japanese idioms! Adding these to your language bank is super important if you want to understand native material and output natural Japanese. This first instalment features 慣用句 that use the word 「足」 in some way. So, “foot/leg” fans, rejoice!

You’ll also be able to (finally) unlock the words 豚 (“pig”), 仁 (“benevolence”), and 速度 (“speed”). This will allow you to accurately describe the speed of a benevolent pig as it barrels toward you to dispense justice. (This is more important than you might think.)

Last but not least, this batch’s reading features a problematic university professor, a conversation regarding “New Year’s Cards”, and a letter distributed to all parents with children attending MaruMori Daycare. Let’s just say they’ve got a big decision on their hands…

That’s all for now!

Happy studies

[Cathm2]

Looks like it’s happened again.

[neicul]

Thanks for letting me know, it’s been back up for a lil while now.

Not sure what causes it other than a database writing error. Looking into fixing it so it hopefully doesn’t happen again, but there aren’t many search hits of others experiencing the same thing will try out a couple of different things, as it’s not the server itself having issues.

[neicul]

The new N2 & N3 JLPT Mock Exams are here!

Hello all!

It’s nearly that time of the year again, when students of Japanese get a chance to show off how well (or not) they’ve studied. We’re happy to announce that, in advance of the upcoming JLPT, we have some new mock exams for you!

Head over to study tools → mock exams to access a brand-new, additional N3 mock exam, as well as our first-ever JLPT N2 mock exam!

We’ve put much time and care into making sure these mock exams are not only accurate in level to the JLPT, but also test common gaps in knowledge and test a wide range of vocabulary/grammar. We hope you get a lot of preparatory use out of them!

As we started N2 and completed N3 adventure content, we’ve also started filling in the missing links of previously made N3 exams, as we made those before N3 was content complete on MM. This means that we’ve linked the vocab, kanji, and grammar points used in the exams to their corresponding lessons for further study in case you failed any of the questions.

Coming along with this update, we’ve also updated the achievements and badge artwork for successfully completing the exams:

Rest assured, we are also working on the audio sections for our JLPT mock exams, and we hope to start releasing them in the coming months, so keep your eyes peeled!

That’s all for now, and best of luck to all of those writing the July JLPT!

P.s. Are you going to be the first to get the new certificate on your profile for passing the N2 exam?

Looks great, doesn’t it?

[neicul]

The (Similar) Kanji Imposter Minigame & Practice Tool just went live!

Emergency meeting! There is an imposter among… these kanji. In fact, they’re all imposters, except one. Your job is to pick the real one! That’s the game. And it’s out now. Hurray!

The Kanji Imposters minigame is all about fine-tuning your kanji recognition skills, by pairing a given kanji with its similar-looking kanji cousins. (Think 末 vs 未.)

There are two different modes, Practice, and High Score. In both modes, you’re given a kanji’s meaning(s), and are prompted to select it from the list of 2-5 kanji below.

For Practice, you may choose from your known (learned) kanji, N5, N4, N3, or N2 kanji. For High Score, the kanji sets are limited to just the JLPT levels.

In Practice, there’s no timer, score, or combo, and you can take as much time as you’d like to identify the correct character. For practice, you can choose the number of questions you’d like, and there is a toggle that lets you filter out correctly answered kanji from your previous session(s). So you don’t have to repeat the ones you find easy!

In High Score, you can pit your kanji-recognition skills against the rest of the community by attempting to pick as many correct kanji (from a pool of 50 random kanji within that JLPT level) as you can, as fast as possible. There is a multiplier bar at the top that starts at x1 and increases as you correctly select kanji. Once it goes above x1, it will begin to diminish quickly, so answer swiftly to increase your multiplier (up to x10) and keep your combo going!

Failing to pick the right answer on time will decrease the combo by 1. Picking the wrong answer will give you 0 points! So, in most cases, it’s preferable to make sure you pick the right one, even if your combo drops by 1 or more (as picking the correct answer will still give you points!).

For convenience’s sake, we’ve also added hotkeys for the kanji options. You can press 1,2,3,4,5 to select the corresponding kanji.

For both modes, after your session, you’ll see a results screen that will show you the number of kanji you identified correctly, as well as the kanji that you didn’t get right.

If you do well enough in a High Score session, you may even end up on the leaderboard…

So good luck, and happy kanji-identifying!

[neicul]

N2 Content Drop

There are some rumors circulating that a large number of users are busy grinding the Kanji Imposters mini game and don’t have time to be excited about the new N2 content drop. Now I’m pretty sure this rumor is false, but just in case, smash that like button to prove the haters wrong! You’re all super exited about the new N2 stuff… right?

In this week’s batch, we’ve got grammar lessons covering points such as ～か何か for “or something”, ～を中心にして, and not just one, but two grammar round-up articles! Woohoo! These round-ups will compare N2 grammar you’ve learned so far, and will specifically deal with points related to both “options” and “bases/standards”.

For kanji and vocab, we’ve got words such as 掘る “to dig”, 酔う “to get drunk”, and 携帯電話 “mobile phone”. Essential!

And as always, practice recent vocab and grammar in this week’s reading exercise featuring angry referees, bathroom emergencies, and helpful information regarding heatstroke. No skipping allowed!

Happy studies!

[neicul]

New Mobile Apps Update - v1.0.8 - Kana Minigame & Leaderboards, Statistics & Achievements Page,Flip Buttons Mode and more!

Hey everyone!

We’ve submitted a new mobile app version to the app stores, bringing a bunch of new features and improvements.

Let’s start with the smaller improvements:

Improvements And New Pages

• Audio in the app will no longer interrupt your background music/sound. Instead, it will temporarily lower the volume of the music while playing the vocabulary / sentence audio.

• Background audio will also no longer get interrupted on the adventure region screen.

• The Reviews Counter “badge” on the app icon will now always clear upon opening the app.

• Flip Button Mode has been added to the app! This makes reviewing on the go a breeze! Enable it during SRS lessons/reviews through the button with the gear icon.

(P.S. I forgot to update the icons on the buttons expect those to get updated with the next app update)

• The Achievements page has been implemented!

• The Statistics page has also been implemented!

Kana MiniGame

The kana mini game has been implemented! This was the last missing piece for the complete adventure course in the mobile apps, so we’re really happy that it’s finally implemented!

The mini game works pretty much exactly the same as on web, but it takes into account available screenspace a bit better. This means that all the corresponding functionality is in place:

The corresponding Adventure levels have now also been linked to the Kana mini game in the app, so every tile in Adventure is now properly covered and implemented! Woohoo!

As on the website, you can choose between practice mode and highscore mode. With the first being a slower version allowing you to practice specific sets of kana, and the latter being an endless onslaught of kana coming your way at an increasing pace! Miss too many and it’s game over! Input a wrong answer and your combo drops!

Why not try it in the mobile app yourself? Perhaps you can beat your score from months ago!

That’s about it for now, but we’ll be working hard on adding new (and missing) features to the mobile apps as soon as possible! So you can expect a new app update to come pretty soon again!

Happy (mobile) studies!

[neicul]

New Mobile Apps Update - v1.0.9 - Kanji Imposters Mini Game & “More” screen redesign

Hey again!

This time around we have another new update for the mobile apps! Mainly focused on implementing the Kanji Imposters Minigame that was released on web not too long ago.

Kanji Imposters (Similar Kanji) Minigame

In case you missed the news: The Kanji Imposters minigame is all about fine-tuning your kanji recognition skills, by pairing a given kanji with its similar-looking kanji cousins. (Think 末 vs 未.)

You can do this in either a practice mode (no time/score pressure!) or a highscore mode where it’s all about how quickly you choose the correct option!

We’ve made sure that everything stays true to how the experience is on the website, so you can expect to find all the same features in there!

Meaning that it’s possible to filter out already correctly answered items in practice mode, and that there are leaderboards for the highscore mode!

This mini game is great practice for getting you to recognise kanji rapidly in the wild, as well as a great way to learn how to differentiate those pesky similar-looking kanji! So we hope you enjoy your favorite new minigame on the go from now on!

The “More” Screen

The More screen has gotten a little visual update, as we were getting a bit too many screens, and we figured it’d be nice to have them categorized (especially as we’ll be implementing many more minigames and other pages into the app in the coming period).

Bugfixes & Improvements

• Some pages (Statistics/Achievements, etc) now also show the navbar.

• Kana Minigame - Fixed highscore mode! The difficulty is now the same as on the website (it wouldn’t (immediately) spawn the same amount of fish as on web)

• Statistics - No longer fails to load/shows a blank screen if you haven’t (ever) done any Grammar SRS yet.

That’s all for now, but expect a new app update to drop again pretty soon! (We’ll be focusing hard on bringing the app up to par with the website in the coming period)

---

P.S.: For those that might not know: If you are a subscriber or have a lifetime account, you can try the mobile app through the following links:

iOS app:

Join the MaruMori beta

Android app:

play.google.com

MaruMori

Learn Japanese with MaruMori! Grammar Lessons, Vocabulary, Kanji and Grammar SR...

Free

In the coming months the app will release from early access into general release, meaning everyone will get access to the app, regardless of subscription status. But until then, we’ll keep implementing missing features first!

[neicul]

New Mobile Apps Update - v1.0.10 - Verb Transitivity Trainer & bugfixes!

Guess what? That’s right! It’s a triple wombo combo of mobile app updates!

We’ve just released yet another update to the mobile app, and this time it’s the verb transitivity trainer’s time to shine!

Verb Transitivity Trainer

The trainer works exactly the same as it does on web, but for those unaware of what exactly it is, I’ll give you a little rundown!

The purpose of the verb transitivity trainer is to get you to recognise and use the correct verbs from a pair, depending on the situation.

We’ve rounded up 62 common verb pairs, of 1 transitive and 1 intransitive verb, and given each verb a unique scenario to test you with. This means we have 124 practice scenarios available!

We have 4 types of practice available for you:

• Scenarios

• En → Jp

• Jp → En

• Mixed

We think that out of these, scenarios are likely the most interesting to talk about here, as the other modes kind of speak for themselves!

Scenarios present you with an English sentence (a scenario), and you have to decide whether you must use the intransitive verb or the transitive verb for this scenario. Here’s an example:

If you don’t remember the “rules”, make sure to tap on the “Help” button, and it will show you the general “rules” for when to use intransitive versus transitive verbs. Note that there are always exceptions though!

When you start a session, you will get 124 questions total, in a randomized order, but you can stop at any time you wish and it will show you your training results page where you can see your mistakes.

It’s great practice, so be sure to give the transitivity trainer a little try on mobile this time around!

Bugfixes & Improvements

• Kanji Imposters - Fixed an issue with high score submission.

• Kanji Imposters - Removed a kanji with 0 similars from the game data.

• Kanji Imposters - You are now able to properly scroll through the results if you had a bunch of mistakes.

• Furigana - Fixed an issue where Japanese sentences/words/kana would sometimes get misaligned due to furigana.

And on we go! We’re going to try and keep up this steam and bring you mobile app updates on the regular until we catch up to the website!

---

P.S.: For those that might not know: If you are a subscriber or have a lifetime account, you can try the mobile app through the following links:

iOS app:

Join the MaruMori beta

Android app:

play.google.com

MaruMori

Learn Japanese with MaruMori! Grammar Lessons, Vocabulary, Kanji and Grammar SR...

Free

In the coming months the app will release from early access into general release, meaning everyone will get access to the app, regardless of subscription status. But until then, we’ll keep implementing missing features first!

[Brave-foot]

This is very late (I just saw your post), but I think Kanshudo has the closest to what you might be looking for

Learn Japanese fast and effectively - Kanshudo

It’s a site that I’ve been using for years and I really like it because it has A LOT of things you can do and read on it.

If you scroll to the bottom, you can see just how many things you can access. Here’s the example for grammar:

I have always used Kanshudo for free, but if you subscribe, it has some amazing features, especially as lately they’ve been implementing AI into their website.

I believe their AI sentence correct is the closest to what you want. Here’s an example from mine:

[neicul]

N2 Content Drop

I write to you from bed, beside a pile of tissues, to announce that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. It was, in fact, only the flu, and not the Tasmanian mind-devourer, as was rumoured. I LIVE!
Oh and also, there’s a new N2 drop.

In this week’s batch, you’ll find grammar points such as 〜限り(は) for “As much as…” statements, 〜かねない and 〜おそれがある for possibilities, and the next instalment in our 慣用句 series, this time covering expressions that involve 頭!

What’s more, you’ll unlock essential vocab such as 履歴書 (“resume/CV”), 空虚 (“emptiness”), and 崩れる (“to collapse”).

Then, practice recent vocab and grammar in the latest reading exercise which covers becoming a runner, annoying children at concerts, and a surprising update in the pizza-thief timeline…

All of this and more, in the Sands of Mastery!

Happy studies!