Actual Reality

Kanagen 0.0.1 in action in Katakana to Romaji mode, with vertical text columns too!

Update: Kanagen 0.0.2 is now out! Please use it and let me know what you think.

Today I finished the first revision (0.0.1) of my program Kanagen. Kanagen is a learning tool to help students learn the Japanese syllabaries. It functions by generating random strings of hiragana or katakana characters, which must be translated into romaji, or vice versa (romaji to kana characters).

It features selectable string length, character selection (so you can choose which part of the alphabet to practice), and the ability to print the text in horizontal rows (like most Japanese websites) or in vertical columns (like Japanese books and newspapers).

Currently it features a text-only interface with menus, but if there is enough interest I would be happy to make a graphical version. I would also like to add additional features such as reading in the user’s input of the romaji transliteration, and perhaps even handwriting recognition so that it would be possible to detect kana drawn with the mouse or a tablet.

I wrote it in Python, and tested it only on Linux. It should work as long as you have a relatively recent version of Python and have Japanese character support installed. To use it, download the two files from one of the mirrors below and run it using python kanagen.py

Please let me know what you think! I appreciate any comments, suggestions, and criticism. I’m sure that there is a lot of room for improvement, since this is after all my first full program written in Python!

Note for Linux console users: If you wish to run this program on the virtual terminal (Alt-F1, Alt-F2, etc.) you must use a program like jfbterm for the Japanese characters to display successfully. Check out my guide to setting up Japanese character support on the console for more information.

Download Links:

Please use Kanagen 0.0.2 instead!