Documentation

No, Mommy, I don't want to get up and write some documentation, only five more minutes... Huh? What? Oh, no, it wasn't just a nightmare, I really have to write some documentation right now ;-) !!

Ok, obviously RudisKanjiTrain is completely self-explanatory and doesn't need any documentation. Like all programs I write for myself and then grow big enough to be of interest, yeah :-).

Ok, but just a few quick pointers. The program has two main parts: the Heisig part and the Vocabulary/PenPen part. The Vocabulary/PenPen part is the vocabulary trainer and has nothing to do with PenPen but that it uses compatible level files. In the pull-down menu, you can choose the xml-Database you want to use for the Heisig-data and for your personal vocabulary you have learned respectivly. Normally you do that once right after installation if you want to save your XML-Data in some other directory than the default-directory (you need to copy the KanjiTrain.xml to the new location first, or an empty one will be used, which is not useful. For the vocabulary starting with an empty one is ok) or not all (if the program directory as the storage location is fine with you) and then let it be loaded and saved automatically. So nothing really fancy there. The only item here you will use regulary is "import vocabulary from PenPen-Format", which you will use after you have learned some PenPen-lesson to add it to your personal vocabulary aka PenPen lessons mastered.

The "count kanji" under "tools" is quite nice to measure your progress. It works on all UTF-8 files, but the main intention is, that you select some PenPen .lvl files and watch in awe at how many kanji you already know. Or choose those you didn't do yet and get depressed :-). Anyway, nice but not important.

The part you want to use can be switched to by the tab pane. Let's first look at Heisig. You have to know that included in the XML/Database of the basic program are:

You can change: Ok, back to the program. You first see a filter of what your next training/learning session will include.

Strange as it sounds, lets start with the bottom. If you check this, the program will remember whether you guessed right or wrong and will use that later if it's so configured in the "Additional criteria based on previous tests" above. If you don't check, it doesn't matter beyond the particular session.

"Only include Kanjis where readings have been entered" is strictly speaking not for Heisig-practice but for readings practice. Only useful if you update the readings of the kanji to reflect only those you do know.

Ok, after you press begin it begins. What you see is limited to a few "Now guess what that is" fields until you choose "Show".

Everything is clear here. The only thing that should be mentioned is the Hints/Story area. Parts from the book should go in the upper textarea, own stories in the lower textarea. This division is only important if enough people like the program so that I start an online-story-swapping-and-automatically-import-it-in-RudisKanjiTrain thingie.

Useful hint: Show is the default button after you click it one time (stupid, I know, will change it), Numpad+ is "Knew that!", Numpad0 is "Darn! Couldn't remember" and "Show all words in current vocabulary" is Numpad-.

The PenPen aka vocabulary trainer part: This consists of two rather identical lists. The difference is, that the "Vocabulary"-List is taken from an XML-File which directly contains all the information about the words. You can remove lessons from the XML-File by using the "Remove"-Button under the list and add lessons by choosing "import vocabulary from PenPen-Format" from the main pull-down menu. The PenPen-List shows a list of all files ending in .lvl which are in the appropriate directory.

The important difference between those two lists is, that the words in the lessons in "Vocabulary" are considered to have been learned by you. This is currently used if you go to the detail of a kanji via Heisig-practice or quick-lookup while learning vocabulary (see below). There you have the ability to show all words with the current kanji in it. Those words are only taken from the vocabulary, not the PenPen levels.

At the bottom of either list there are choices which information about a word you want to show at first. While the program is mainly designed with training for reading japanese (from kanji to kana/reading to meaning/translation), it can be configured to train from meaning/translation to kanji or leave out the kanji completely and only train from meaning/translation to romaji.

Now choose either PenPen or Vocabulary, select any lesson (vocabulary will be empty, if you haven't added some lessons to it, so for now you will probably use PenPen) and press Begin.

The order in which the words are given is randomized at start and every time you choose "Dang, didn't know". If you choose "Knew it!" the word is removed from the pool of that lesson for this session only. The vocabulary trainer doesn't save any of these choices for later sessions. The "Show romaji" transliterates the kana-version, right know Katakana isn't transliterated, only Hiragana. "Show english" should be "show translation" as it will be only english, if the level file has it's translations in english.

A important feature here is the ability to click on any of the kanji and jump to the Heisig and reading information of that kanji. If the kanji isn't in Heisig 1 (the only kanji entered so far) or it's not kanji, nothing happens. Additionally, you can press the corresponding number key to the order of the letter in the word to go there too. This is useful if you want, like me, control the program by IR-Remote and Girder.

In the kanji-detail screen there you can also further press the "Show all words in current vocabulary" button to show all words from your personal vocabulary you already know. This is quite useful and worth further mention. Right now, on the surface, there seems to be little difference whether you add some PenPen-Level to the personal vocabulary or just remember which lessons you did and only use the PenPen-way. However, I found it very useful in learning some readings I just couldn't get into my head, when I had find a quick way to review all words where that kanji also appears (and where I probably couldn't remember the reading either :-) ). So I think it's more effective to don't worry overly about a single kanji/reading you are finding hard to learn, if it's the first time you encountered that kanji/reading. Often another word would pop up which you found easier to remember. If you then later encounter the first, hard word again and find that it has a kanji/reading you could remember in another word, often the first word becomes rememberable too.

Now for the final hint. The program is written in a way as to allow to completly control it by keyboard and thus ensure that it's also controllable by remote control programs like Girder. Just remember that dialogs can be closed by ALT-F4 under Windows as the "Close" Buttons don't all have keyboard shortcuts. I recommend trying that, it is much easier to learn kanji if you are sitting in a comfortable armchair with a remote control in one hand and a few meters away from the screen than crouching over a mouse and keyboard and staring for hours at the kanji from half a metre away. If you need some tipps or recommandations or a Girder config for your remote control setup drop me a mail.