MaruMori.io & Kitsun.io - [UPDATE: Mobile Apps Beta!] - Grammar SRS, Grammar Lessons, Reading Exercises, Vocabulary, Kanji and more!

[neicul]

This is a third-party script/app and is not created by the WaniKani team. By using this, you understand that it can stop working at any time or be discontinued indefinitely.

UPDATE: Introducing MaruMori!

https://marumori.io

This is our take on creating a fun and fully structured approach to learning Japanese. It’s something I’ve personally been wanting ever since I started learning Japanese and I’m super happy to finally be able to show it to everyone!

First off, some screenshots to give you an impression:

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Here’s the main list of features we’ve currently got:

• A main course “adventure” where each region has its own theme and corresponds to a level of mastery in Japanese. In these regions you follow a path consisting of:

• Grammar Lessons - Full blown textbook-like grammar lessons. Taking you all the way from absolute beginner to mastering the language

• Reading Exercises - Get exposed to the grammar, vocabulary, and kanji that you learn throughout your journey by reading through fun stories. These increase in difficulty based on how much you already know in our system.

• Grammar SRS - That’s right, we also offer a Grammar SRS! You will automatically unlock Grammar SRS homework when you complete a Grammar Lesson in adventure.

• Vocabulary & Kanji Unlocks - Learn Vocabulary and Kanji through our SRS. Of course with the help of either our premade mnemonics, community mnemonics, or your own personal mnemonics.

• Learn Kanji by building on other kanji. The kanji mnemonics in our main course build on previously learned kanji (where possible), rather than building on “radicals”. Drastically reducing the number of radicals needed to learn kanji!

• Course Exercises - Kana, conjugation, and grammar drills which test you on the knowledge you just learned in the grammar lessons.

• Study Lists - Aside from the main course, we also have Study Lists for vocabulary and kanji. Study Lists function nearly the same as Decks in Kitsun. The big twist this time is that all progress is shared between lists, meaning no more duplicate lessons/reviews. This time we have two flavors: Personal and Premade. Premade lists are made by us and range from textbooks to exams, anime and games. Personal lists are made by adding kanji or vocabulary from the dictionary.

• Dictionary - We aimed to create a very information-rich dictionary, with excellent search capabilities and a lot of extra handy information. It’s also fully integrated with our SRS, so all improvements suggested by users during lessons & reviews will be publicly available through the dictionary pages too.

• Earn awesome achievements, badges, and titles as you progress through the islands and show them off in the community sections of MaruMori.

• A super cute mascot named Maru Can you spot them in the screenshots above?

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We also have A LOT of features planned for the coming months (and years even), such as mock exams, listening exercises, writing practice, graded readers, mini-games and so on. It really is supposed to be your one-stop solution for learning the language!

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Few more screenshots:

UPDATE: The eager-awaited mobile apps are here!

Currently the apps are available for both iOS and Android as open beta releases.

For iOS the beta is available through testflight:

Join the Kitsun beta

For android it is available in the play store as “early access”:

play.google.com

Kitsun

The smartest way to power up your studies...

Free

As for features, I think most of the essential features are in there at the moment, but here is the list of features still coming up:

Coming soon:

• Quick Edit card during lessons/reviews
• Media (audio/picture) upload functionality for cards and deck cover editing

Later on:

• Quick study
• Cards Management
• Custom dictionary card popups
• Layout Filtering Settings

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Hi everyone!

I’d like to present my project Kitsun.io to you all. Kitsun is an SRS study platform which has been in development for a few years now. The platform launched after having a succesful beta with members from the WK forums

What is it?

My goal with Kitsun.io is to create the ultimate SRS study platform which combines the best features of both Anki and Wanikani and introduces new Kitsun-exclusive features.

For example, setting up Anki can be a real hassle and has to be done on every device that you want to use. With Kitsun you don’t have to set up anything. Just grab a community deck or import a word list and start learning! Since it’s a website, all your data is stored right in the cloud.

Or perhaps creating your own flashcards and decks is more your kinda thing? Kitsun got some convenient tools to make it easier for you, such as a dictionary page where you can search any word or kanji and make a card out of it with a few clicks.

Do you love learning through Video? Subs2Kitsun got you covered! Start creating flashcards from your favorite series and movies in no time.

Do you need help with learning through reading native texts such as books? Kitsun’s reading assistance tool can parse complete books for you and let you see the definitions, kanji information and more with a single click! Generate flashcards with ease while you work your way through your favorite book!

Of course, everything is tweakable as well, you get the freedom of Anki while sticking to the same system that WaniKani provides. This also means that you can create your own styling and templates for cards as well.

TL;DR: Kitsun is a collection of convenient tools inside a clean and flexible SRS study platform where users can easily create decks and flashcards and share them with other learners.

Screenshots

Sounds good, how can I start?

You can try for free here!

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Need help, have questions or feedback? We have the following options for you to use:

• Kitsun Discord
• The Den (Kitsun Forums)
• This WK thread
• Email us at support@kitsun.io

[neicul]

REMOVED

Please take a look at the guide section on Kitsun for a quickstart

[mztik]

I’ve signed up. Looking forward to test it out.

Also, thanks for being upfront about this becoming a paid service.

[Welteam]

I’m not an Anki user so maybe I just missed the info but to me you forgot the most important information : Why your service over Anki?

[neicul]

Edit: Updated answer since this comment is still being read often.

I think the main reasons why someone would use this over anki are the following:

Modern interface
One of the most common complaints with Anki is that it looks outdated and feels un-intuitive to the average user. Kitsun is web-based and has a modern UI/UX. This also means that your cards can make use of HTML5 and CSS3 features.

Ease of starting
Anki is relatively difficult for users to get used to and it takes quite some effort to start creating cards that have the visual flair that we nowadays expect. In Kitsun there are default templates and layouts which allow the user to instantly start creating their flashcards.

Any deck created also has default settings which make sense (based on WaniKani’s system).

Community Centre
Next to this, the user can just go to the Community Centre page and instantly grab the shared decks that they want, without having to download, import or tweak anything.

Instant updates
Another benefit from this is that whenever the creator wants to update their shared decks, they can just do so by clicking the update button. This action will instantly update the deck for all current and future users with the changes that the creator made in the original deck which was used for publishing. No need to re-download anything.

Cloud Storage
Everything is stored in online databases and servers right under your own account. Meaning you won’t need to sync or download anything.

Same Experience Everywhere
Kitsun is a progressive web app, meaning that it should provide the same experience on every type of device that supports websites (excluding some small browser limitations).

Gamification
Gamification definitely helps users with studying if done right. It boosts their studying behavior and helps build a habit. Taking a note from Wanikani, Kitsun incorporates a similar system.

Community Forums
To help build a community, Kitsun also has forums available. We have threads for every Community Deck so that users can discuss the deck or provide feedback to the creators. Another use for the forums is voting on new features and requesting features.

Instant Cards from Dictionaries
This one is hot off the press, having the flow of:

Encounter vocab in wild → search it in Kitsun (with the Jisho.org API) → instantly add it as a flashcard to learn

is something Anki does not offer or needs time/skills to set up.

Collaboration (coming soon)
Ever wanted to create a deck with multiple people (e.g. a layout designer, a content creator, a quality checker etc)? This will soon be possible on Kitsun.

Example use-case:
On the WaniKani forums users often form bookclubs. The users can make a shared deck on which they can all collaborate to insert unknown vocab. That way other bookclub members can use the deck to pre-learn or retain the vocab they encounter while reading a certain book.

[raegefilth]

Definitely going to check it out!

The name confuses me though since I’m also using a website called kitsu.io that’s like an anime/manga database similiar to MyAnimeList.

[neicul]

@raegefilth

The name confuses me though since I’m also using a website called kitsu.io that’s like an anime/manga database similiar to MyAnimeList.

Hahaha I did notice that website but was already set on naming it like this. But look at it from the bright side, now you just have to type N to switch

[Kumirei]

Is Anki → Kitsun import a planned feature?

[DawnTheFawn]

@neicul

To make it even easier to test and perhaps switch from anki, I’ve also created an import feature. Simply upload your anki deck file and it will start to import everything to kitsun.io More information about this below!

It seems it already is a feature

[greywillfade]

I’ve been using other people’s Anki decks, but actually started my own this morning and wow is it hard going. There’s definitely a gap in the market for a product with better UX, so I’ll look forward to playing with this later tonight. Good luck with it!

[Kumirei]

Oops I’m happy with Anki, so I just skimmed the OP.

A follow-up then: is everything imported? Item statistics, media, card layout, scheduling?

[VegasVed]

Imma get on this asap

[viet]

Is this language/topic agnostic? Or is this specifically for Japanese? Would like to try this for my language learning flow

[Radish8]

Will there be any way for cards to have three ‘sides’, as it were? If I’m learning vocabulary, I think I’d like to be able to test English > Japanese, Japanese > Meaning, Japanese > Reading. Would I just have to create separate cards to test for each of these things?

Also a very small note that the text on the black bars in the shots of the ‘review’ layout that you included looks super dark.

[neicul]

@Kumirei

A follow-up then: is everything imported? Item statistics, media, card layout, scheduling ?

Currently everything (including media being uploaded to the kitsun servers) except progress and the stats (from progress) is imported. I will take another look to see if I can import progress as well.

@viet

Is this language/topic agnostic? Or is this specifically for Japanese? Would like to try this for my language learning flow

It can be used for anything you can learn with flashcards. Seeing your comment makes me realize I kinda put it in the wrong forum category

[Borx]

Would you like it moved? Regulars can do that for you.

[neicul]

Hmm, I think that currently the easiest way for this is to create a card with a layout for “English > Japanese” and then save the card two more times with other layouts selected for the other two. Making it just a few button presses of work

Edit:
@Radish8 (In case you didn’t see the edit)
I’ll note it down as a feature request to select multiple layouts so it automatically makes a new card per layout, seems pretty handy!

[viet]

@neicul

It can be used for anything you can learn with flashcards. Seeing your comment makes me realize I kinda put it in the wrong forum category

Awesome. I was going to create my own mini WK version for my Vietnamese vocab learning. But if this is a way better substitute than Anki, then this will save me time.

I haven’t seen the features list yet. Any plans for a CSV or JSON import?

[Radish8]

Cool, that’s totally fine - just wanted to understand how it works. So you can’t flip cards, as it were? There’s always a question side and an answer side?

Edit: @neicul thanks for the tag! Definitely gonna check this out.

[samfruc]

It would be awesome if you could make it to work offline too, like Google docs are. There are places where it’s hard to have a good internet access, so being able to work it offline too would be great.