NOTE: This is for the 2nd edition of GENKI. The app for the 3rd edition will be released in October 2020. You cannot update this app to the 3rd edition app.
Learn elementary Japanese words at your own pace: GENKI Vocab Cards is a digital vocabulary card app that enables users to learn approximately 1,200 words essential for beginners along with the native pronunciations at their own pace!
This is the official iPhone app from GENKI: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese, a best-selling series of Japanese learning materials boasting more than 1.2 million copies sold.
Advantages ◆Users can view the cards and listen to the recordings as they like, enabling them to study at their own pace. ◆By repeating a process of memorization and self-checking, learners can firmly master important beginning-level vocabulary. ◆Words already memorized are progressively removed from the card deck, so users can concentrate on just the words that challenge them, making for a more efficient approach to learning.
Study methods and functions ◇ “MyDeck” allows users to view the cards over and over, so they can take their time learning. ・The words can be studied by working from English to Japanese, or vice-versa. ・Learners can listen to natural pronunciations by native speakers of Japanese. ・Fun illustrations help users to better retain the words studied. ・Each card also includes an example sentence with an English translation and a recording of its pronunciation.
◇ “Check” helps learners to track their mastery. ・Users check their understanding of the vocabulary studied and sort the words into those mastered and those not yet retained. ・Retention can be checked by going from English to Japanese, or vice-versa. ・The cards of words already mastered are taken out of the set, leaving behind just those that still need to be worked on.
◇ “List” displays a list of all words covered by the app so that users can see their progress and review the vocabulary. ・Checkmarks are automatically placed next to words that have been mastered. ・The word cards can be displayed from the list entries, enabling quick review. ・The list can be arranged in any of three orderings: lesson order, a-i-u-e-o order, and alphabetical order.
○This app is based on the vocabulary from the second edition of GENKI. ○Ads: The app does not display any ads that might interfere with learning.
Sound playback and usability issues This should be a great accompaniment to the books, but I find it suffers from three problems:
1. The sound playback (speaking the word on the card) doesn’t work if the phone is on vibrate. As manually trigger audio playback, it would use audio volume, not ringer volume. 2. The touch targets on the cards are widely spaced and hard to use one handed as a result. 3. The furigana on the Japanese side of the cards is too small - I know the books are targeted at a college age demographic but they don’t have to be *this* small. The serifed font just makes this worse.
Needs some development Would be great if there was a search function or letter selection option in the LIST view instead of having to scroll through the whole vocabulary list.
No sound The sound pretends to play but does not. Hitch in the app.