What's up, guys? Let's talk about writing practice.
I think it's
important to practice writing kanji (even if you never plan on doing any
handwriting in Japanese) because writing the kanji out while mentally
reciting the mnemonic story is a great way to cement the knowledge into
your mind. To that end, I've been working on an Anki deck that uses the
WaniKani curriculum and AnkiDroid's whiteboard function (*see "Compatibility notes" below) to combine the
benefits of writing practice with those of SRS.
Features
On Mobile Apps (AnkiDroid and AnkiMobile): Practice writing anywhere! Draw the kanji right on your phone or tablet screen
On Desktop Anki / AnkiWeb: Study smart. Combine the benefits of pen-and-paper writing practice and Anki's SRS system
Contains every kanji from levels 1–60, and will be updated whenever new kanji are added to WaniKani.
Includes
links to online resources, currently WaniKani, Kanji Koohi, and
KanjiDamage for mnemonics and Jisho.org, Wiktionary, and
ChineseEtymology.org for sentences, related words, etymological, an
other general info.
You can choose to hide the Meaning, Readings, and/or Resources section (just edit the card type on desktop Anki)
Also includes stroke order diagrams via the KanjiStrokeOrders font (*see "Compatibility notes" below)
The intervals are the same as hinekidori's Wanki Deck to simulate WaniKani as closely as possible
The note format comes from Dennis Martinez' WaniKani to Anki Exporter, so you can delete the default notes and import your own if you'd like
The
deck is optimized for AnkiDroid, but should work just fine desktop Anki and AnkiMobile (*see "Compatibility notes" below)
This is just for kanji—no components / "radicals"
Compatibility notes
I originally wrote this for my own personal use with AnkiDroid, which has some features not available on AnkiMobile or the desktop version of Anki. Here are the major differences and how to work around them:
The whiteboard/scratchpad function is only available on Ankidroid (Android) and AnkiMobile (iOS). Desktop Anki and AnkiWeb do not have this feature. There's nothing I can do about this. To use this deck on desktop Anki or AnkiWeb, you'll have to use pen and paper or a physical whiteboard. It may seem slightly inconvenient, but think about it like this: you're still getting all of the benefits of writing practice backed by an SRS system, PLUS writing with a real pen on real paper will give better results than mashing your finger on a screen. Consider it an even trade.
Additionally, the scratchpad isn't enabled by default on the iPhone version of Anki. There are instructions to enable it on the AnkiMobile FAQ.
There are a few easy-to-edit configuration
options built into the cards. At the very top of the front template are
the options for hiding parts of the card you don't want to see:
You can change the scale of the whole card to better fit your device by setting the overall font size here:
使い方
Step 1) The
front side of the card gives the keyword, on reading (pink katakana), kun
reading (purple hiragana), and a whiteboard area:
Step 3) When
you answer the card, the correct kanji will appear underneath your
drawing in light grey. You should be able to see whether you got it
right or not and grade yourself accordingly:
Step 4) Tap the squiggly line to turn off the whiteboard. You can now interact with the card. Tap the kanji to show a stroke diagram, or tap any of the buttons to look up the kanji in various online resources
It’s a really cool idea and I agree - even for people not looking to learn how to write, it’s still useful as a revision tool. It would also help to give a more comprehensive understanding of Japanese. So yeah, all for it. Please to make it public if you can, I’d love to use it.
Yes! This is awesome! Have you considered putting the kunyomi in hiragana and the onyomi in katakana, as some dictionaries do? I find that helpful. Either way I will totally use this deck.
Great idea!!! I am very interested in writing, and this deck looks like a step up from the writing practice cards I made. I am a stickler when it comes to stoke order, so are you considering putting in something to help with stroke order? I can’t wait to try this, it will definitely help me with my kanji proportions.
Woah this is awesome!! I’ve been trying to look for something just like this too, because I really dislike printing out worksheets (all that ink and paper) xD
zrgeiffel said…
Yes! This is awesome! Have you considered putting the
kunyomi in hiragana and the onyomi in katakana, as some dictionaries do?
I find that helpful. Either way I will totally use this deck.
I wanted to, but the WaniKani API returns
both readings in hiragana. I could do a bulk-convert, but that would
break compatibility with the WaniKani exporter and I’m not sure if
that’s something I want to do. Maybe I could write a little javascript
to convert it on the fly, but that would (probably) be a version-two
thing.
arborlover2123 said…
Great idea!!! I am very interested in writing, and
this deck looks like a step up from the writing practice cards I made. I
am a stickler when it comes to stoke order, so are you considering
putting in something to help with stroke order? I can’t wait to try
this, it will definitely help me with my kanji proportions.
Yeah. I want to include the stroke order font, possibly as a tap-to-toggle with the rest of the back side of the card.
Alright guys. I’m starting on the first public version. Look out for it later today!
I noticed a few things after I hit upload. These will be fixed (hopefully) tomorrow, so please don't bother reporting them.
The
notes aren't in the right order. I added a sort field, but Anki is
using the "date added" order for sorting. I'll have to edit all the
notes to fix this
I forgot to put the notes in sub decks
There is junk media in the download. Apparently Anki shares all media (from every deck) starting with an underscore, even if it's not used in the deck. you're sharing I'm not sure how to fix this.
The study intervals are just plain defaults. This looks like another shortcoming of AnkiWeb
I think I'm just gonna share the .apkg from now on, as that should preserve the deck setting better.
Changes:
Wrote a short bit of javascript that will replace any hiragana in the "ONyomi" field with katakana. This keeps compatibility with the WaniKani API
Added kanji mnemonic resources: WaniKani, Kanji Koohi, and KanjiDamage
Added general kanji resources: Jisho.org, Wiktionary, ChineseEtymology.org
Added favicons for the resources
Kanji resources now only show on the back side of the card
Added stroke order diagram. Tap the kanji after answering to see it (unfortunately, you have to turn off the whiteboard to interact with the card).
You will have to install the Kanji Stroke Order font. Download it, extract it to your Anki folder, and name it exactly "_KanjiStrokeOrders.ttf" (capitilization matters). There's more help available in the Anki Manual: Installing Fonts
Minor layout tweaks
Notes:
This is my first shared deck, so I'm not 100% that all the media is exported correctly. I've posted a screenshot below, so let me know if anything is missing
I've included a lot of resources, but I'm sure you all have your favorites. Let me know if there are any you'd like me to add
If there's a resource you don't want to show (to avoid clutter, etc), just delete its line from the "Resources" div on the front side of the card
I still haven't done any tablet or low-DPI layout testing. The whole layout is defined with ems, so it should scale based on your device size. If it doesn't you can increase or decrease the font size in the .card class and everything else will scale with it
The jisho.org kanji search URL format is supposed to be "jisho.org/search{kanji} #kanji", but no matter how I format it it takes you to the vocab search. I have no idea how to fix this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I also haven't done any iOS device testing, as I don't own one
If you come across any layout bugs, post a screenshot!
Finally the (sorta) bad news: I'm not going to bother making a dedicated PC layout. I tried a few ideas out, and I'd wind up maintaining two sets of CSS for a minimal difference in the interface. Since this deck is much more useful on mobile, and the default layout looks fine on PC anyway, I feel like it'd be a waste of time.
This is super fucking cool (wo)man. I don’t know if I’ll use it, just because it’s hard to see myself taking that extra time out of my day, but if writing ever becomes a big priority to me, this will be so so so helpful
thank you so much!!! i just tried this out and it’s amazing. i really wanted some way to practice writing and sitting down and making myself write out kanji repeatedly just wasn’t gonna happen lol. i think writing is a great way to really hammer the details of the kanji in my head so i don’t get it messed up with similar-looking ones…
I was just looking for something like this, and the only thing I could really find was a site called http://www.skritter.com/ . It is kanji writing in an SRS format but it is some what unreasonably expensive of 15$ a month after a free week, but I am loving. Think I might switch to your deck after my free week though just because of how expensive it is.
