Tools

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See also: http://ja-dark.tumblr.com/tagged/language-learning-software

Tools created by Christopher Brochtrup aka cb4960

See readme.txt files for instructions. I am not cb4960.

  • JGlossator – Link – Used to perform a gloss on Japanese text complete with de-inflected expressions, readings, audio pronunciation, example sentences, pitch accent and kanji information. Now includes dependency parsing and jCorrect.
  • Kanji Word Association Tool + KWAT Dictionary Generator – This tool was created for students who want to learn kanji and words at the same time in the most optimal fashion possible. Based on a user-provided list of kanji, this tool will generate a list of words that are associated with each kanji and ensure that each word consists only of kanji that you have already studied up to that point.
  • Epwing2Anki  – Link – May be used to automatically or semi-automatically create Japanese Anki vocabulary cards based on a provided list of words and one or more of your favorite EPWING dictionaries and/or the included EDICT J-E dictionary and Tatoeba example sentence corpus.
  • Audio Lesson Studio – “Allows you to create simple, user-defined, .mp3 audio lessons that may be used as an aid for learning languages or just about anything else – use your imagination! Audio can be based on existing media or automatically generated using Text-To-Speech.”
  • Capture2Text – Japanese/English (and more) OCR Utility – “A utility that allows you to quickly capture a small portion of the screen, OCR it and (by default) save the result to the clipboard.”
  • Japanese Text Analysis Tool – Used to analyze Japanese texts and generate 3 kinds of reports: Word Frequency Report, Kanji Frequency Report, and Readability Report.
  • Japanese Text Analysis Tool reports for a large number of innocent novels – Includes word frequency report, kanji frequency report, and readability report.
  • cbJisho – E-J Dictionary Based on Word Frequency – “An English-to-Japanese dictionary that sorts results based on relative frequencies in blogs, newspapers and novels.” Usage
  • JNovel Formatter – “A utility that will convert a Japanese novel (in text form) to one or more specially formatted HTML files.” HTML Ruby Add-On (Firefox)
  • Rikaisama – A modification of Rikaichan to include 1) JDIC vocabulary audio support, 2) EPWING Mode, 3) J-J sanseido dictionary lookups, 4) Advanced save options. 5) Ability to save directly to an Anki deck. 6) Super Sticky Mode. 7) Startup tab in options dialog. 8) Kanji link to the study page. Usage – Like Lingoes, allows for within-definition lookups as well.
  • subs2srs – “A utility that allows you to create SRS (for example Anki) import files based on your favorite foreign language movies and TV shows to aid in the language learning process.” Usage – Now with Subs Re-Timer (Usage)
  • Aozora Gaiji Replacer – “A utility that will look at a Japanese novel and replace aozora gaiji constructs with UTF-8 equivalents.”
  • Aozora Remover – “A utility that will remove the Aozora constructs and HTML tags from a file or a directory of files.”
  • vobsub2text – “A utility that uses OCR technology to automatically convert VOBSUB subtitles (.idx/.sub) to subrip (.srt) subtitles.” (Currently in the experimental stage).
  • Word List Duplicate Remover – Link – Finds both unique and duplicate words based on a list of words that you want to learn and the words already in your Anki deck.
  • cb’s Frequency List Sorter – Link – Sorts a list of Japanese words based on their frequency.

offline Popup dictionaries

  • Lingoes – Allows for within-definition look-ups, allowing the user to cycle through definitions based on other definitions.
  • StarDict – There are many more Japanese dictionaries for Stardict than Lingoes, such as found here.

Text Analysis Tools

  • AntConc – Freeware, features concordancing and text mining functions.
  • KH Coder – “KH Coder is a free software for Quantitative Content Analysis or Text Mining of Japanese language data.”
  • Language Grid Playground – Various language services, including semantic dictionaries, translators, morphological analysis, and dependency parsing.
  • Transcriber – “A tool for segmenting, labeling and transcribing speech.” Superseded by TranscriberAG.
  • Translation Aggregator – Suite that compiles web tools for translating, morphological parsing and annotating. * Even better than this is jGlossator.
  • jGloss – Offline glosser/parser with various display and export options; uses edict files and optionally, Chasen.

Other Tools

  • AntConc – Text concordance freeware.
  • Kage Shibari – Tool for controlled shadowing, interactive audiobooks which includes using .trs files. To be explained further in a separate post.
  • Word Search Creator – Desktop freeware to make your own Japanese word search puzzles.
  • Wordsearch, Crossword – Make your own word search and crossword puzzles from Japanese words.
  • Anki – SRS (Spaced Retrieval System); highly customizable digital flashcards with schedule based on algorithm and self-graded user feedback.
  • AnkiMobile – iOS version of the above. Quite sleek and robust.
  • TxtMiru 2.0 – Reader that supports vertical, selectable text. Note: Selectable text now requires right-clicking and toggling 選択モード.
  • Aozora to Kindle – Online tool that converts Aozora-formatted books to Kindle-friendly .pdf files, with ruby and vertical, selectable text.
  • 青Ｐ – Offline tool for converting to vertical text .pdf, with Aozora formatting support.
  • Dinglabs Desktop Player – Offline player for reading and listening to audiobooks with interactive transcripts.
  • ePubunco – Aozora to ePub bookmarklet.
  • ePubpack – Create ePub3 files (which support Japanese formatting). Usage
  • espur – Japanese ePub3 reader (supports vertical text, ruby, etc.). Alternative DL links as their own is very slow: Mirror 1 (Minus), Mirror 2
  • AIR草紙 – Reader that supports ePub and .pdf; requires Adobe AIR 2.6+, doesn’t seem to work for ePub preformatted for Japanese (see espur for samples).
  • Gensen: Terminology Extraction System – “You can extract valued domain specific terms from Web pages or text you input. The extracted terms are sorted and displayed in descending order of their importance.”
  • Japanese Proofreader 日木語文章校正ツ‐ル – Uses Yahoo! Japan proofreading API. Beta phase.
  • Monjo Hakase – Web implementation of jcorrect/CaboCha.
  • jcorrect – Another web implementation, that doesn’t seem to work. Linking anyway.
  • Adobe Digital Editions – Supports Japanese ePub3 – Recommended.
  • AozoraEpub3 – Create Japanese epub3/mobi with vertical text and rubi, etc. See here.
  • Chakoshi (茶漉) – Searches collocations based on Aozora Bunko and Nagoya conversational corpus.
  • Natsume – Writing Support System – Corpus-based collocation lookups, with various filters, including sorting by frequency and emphasis on genre (academic papers, blogs, books, etc.) and which particles to use.
  • あすなろ – Japanese Reading System for Multilingual Environments – Features morphological analysis, sentence diagramming (dependency is okay alternative to KNP/Langrid as mentioned here), compound phrases, idiomatic and “intentional” meanings, example sentences, et cetera.
  • NLB (NINJAL-LagoWordProfiler for the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese) – NLB, jointly developed by NINJAL and Lago Institute for Language, uses the technique of lexical profiling and allows the user to profile, without much knowledge of computers, the collocational and grammatical behavior of the Japanese nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs included in NINJAL’s Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ).
  • Chantokun – “Chantokun can revise Japanese sentences statistically with large scale corpora. A whole new experience for Japanese learners.” I hesitated to recommend this due to its reliance on Lang-8’s corrections as its corpus.
  • Nutmeg – This partially relies on a learner corpus, so I’ve been hesitant to recommend this also.
  • The Reading Tutor Web Dictionary – Another online glossing tool.

iOS apps

Android

  • Mojitomo – Words with Friends for Japanese. Seems to use hiragana only.
  • Seppukuman – Hangman w/ kana, using seppuku instead of hanging.