Hi everyone, long time no see.
I’ve been thinking about a project for like a year now and I can’t seem to start it yet (I have higher priorities but it’s still not an excuse). I want to know your opinion first to see if people are actually interested in something like this or I am just going to waste my time.
THE PROJECT
So the project is basically a Japanese web app that will be called Tanohongo (a mix between “Tanoshii”(fun) and “Nihongo”(Japanese)). After trying so many sources to learn Japanese (or attempt to hehe) I noticed that reading isn’t emphasized on too much. You can still read a manga to have fun but can you even understand it without spending 2 hours per page? I don’t think so…unless you are level 60 on WK
That’s where Tanohongo comes into play. Allowing people to improve their reading skills while having fun is the main goal. So the main sources will be games and anime since that’s the reason why most of people learn the language (at least in my case).
SOME OF THE FEATURES
Now concerning the features and how it’s done, nothing is set in stone yet but here is a couple of ideas :
- It’s kind of similar to NHK WEB NEWS (EASY), but you have gaming/anime content instead of just random news(Yes, I hate news).
- The content is in english, but you have toggles that will display extra text, one for the Japanese translation and one for the Romaji (so you use what you want according to your level).
- People can suggest content (example : I want a translation of the Gym leader’s speech in Pokemon White). Someone can pick up the suggestion and do the translation in exchange of a certain amount of money (to understand this you can think about UPWORK, you mention what you want, you suggest a price and you wait for a freelancer to help you).
- This might be weird for some people, most of the text especially buttons will be in English and Japanese (example : Home ‘ホーム’). Offering a Japanese experience even for non Japanese speaks is one of the main goals of the app. You get a feel of Japanese without getting stuck
- There will be a list of the basic 2000 or so Kanji you need to know and every Kanji will have a unique page. On that page, you will find 5 quotes from different game/anime characters including the specific Kanji.
- There might be a level system. This one is still undefined(needless to say, you get rewards every 10 levels for example). Let’s say you can only access 3 articles per day (free version) and an unlimited amount of articles (8$ per month). At level 10, you can access 5 articles, at level 50 you only pay 4$ per month, etc…
- And more…
HOW I WILL DO IT
As you can see, it’s not something that I can do all by myself. That’s why the plan would be as follows.
-Learn/Become Decent at Javascript (Programming Language). Even as a software engineering student I still suck at coding, well I will stop doing it soon anyway(yes, you heard that right).
-Look for people to help me to make like a beta version.
-Make some sexy mockups of what’s not done yet.
-Start a kickstarter(to make a team of developers/translators).
I have to do an internship aboard to get my degree in 2019 and I decided to go to Japan so I will be looking for internships very soon. Who knows, I might find some Japanese people who are interested
That’s all, if you made it this far then know that you are amazing and that you already helped me. I don’t mind anyone stealing my ideas as I am already working on other projects (not school related). In fact I would be happy since it’ll make things even easier. This is mainly for the community, not my ultimate project. I honestly think that it’ll help a lot of people, I might be wrong though, that’s why I am here.
Now, warm up that keyboard and start typing. Yes you, the one who is reading this. I promise to give you a cookie for every line you write. Who is gonna pay for it? you of course!