Nihongo Lessons for Android

I just found out about JALUP and am so glad that someone is maintaining the project. No problems with the app so far and I’m excited to see how you grow this project moving forward!

As someone new to the Jalup community, I am thrilled and relieved that you not only saved such incredible content from the possibility of abandonment, but improved on the app presentation! Thank you! I’ve already paid for the full package in the app, and I’m loving the quality and experience. Looking forward to seeing what else you have in store for us in the future.

So far I’ve enjoyed using the app. Quality content with quality audio. I have two requests for improving my experience. I wish there was a way to automatically play audio when flipping the card. I use the front to quiz my pronunciation and understanding and would like to automatically hear the audio upon flipping the card. Often, I have long car rides. I’d like to play the cards while driving to maximize my studying time.

I love this app. As a UX designer, I give the app’s UI a big thumbs up! It looks nice (though dark mode would be nice), it’s easy to use, and the flash card feature is super intuitive. But as a learner of Japanese and former language teacher myself, I’m skeptical about ONLY reviewing words in the context of a sentence. Learning a word in context is great! And I love that about this app. However, reviewing a word in context? Hm… how can I really test my ability to recall a word if it’s always in a context that gives away the answer? The struggle to recall a word is what really helps you learn vocabulary. That’s what any learning designer will tell you, and that’s the whole point of flash cards! Does this app help you accomplish that? Not really. Humans are really good at memorizing a sentence when they have cues. After I’ve reviewed a sentence a few times, I have the meaning of the sentence memorized, even if I haven’t memorized each word individually. Let me give you an example. I just reviewed the sentence, “ここでは、日本人は稀だ.” I can easily remember what the sentence means after reviewing that sentence once or twice, therefore I can tell you what 稀 means. Remembering the meaning of a sentence is easy because it’s full of cues. But what if you showed me the word 稀 on its own and asked me to recall the meaning. Could I? Probably not. Or what if you asked me if I knew the Japanese word for “rare”? I would probably not be able to pull the word 稀 from the recesses of my memory. Here’s my recommendation to the product owner. First you need to teach the word in context (as you’re already doing), and THEN you need to quiz for understanding using just the Japanese word. If you really want to test my understanding, then surface the Japanese definition and make me remember what the word was. That would be so good for learning! It would also really differentiate you from anything else I’ve seen. At the moment, this is an awesome app that just doesn’t accomplish its purpose. I think if you add the features I mentioned above, you’ll have the best Japanese learning app on the market.

I never knew about Jalup, but should have. If you have and love Nihongo you know what to expect, this is serious quality at a serious price. Pro tools are serious $$$ and “Nihongo Lessons” is in this “professional” space, it has a LOT of structured content in those decks. My user case: intermediate to advanced, but haven’t used Japanese seriously in years, started to forget things, so bought the full monty as a “refresher course.” Even if you’re at a higher level, give this a download and try the first few decks to get a feel. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Bonus that it integrates with Nihongo with very little friction. One of the other reviewers mentioned Mobile, I’d love to see the app optimized for Mobile but it’s not a dealbreaker. It’s is in my Android dock and gets used every day. Really looking forward to the Kanji decks but busy enough with filling gaps in my grammar and vocabulary now.