J-Flash 1.1

1. Japanese Writing
   1. Hiragana And Katakana
   2. Pronunciation
   3. Hiragana Characters
   4. Katakana Characters
   5. Table Concepts
2. Basic Program Overview
   1. Requirements
   2. Program Basics
   3. Vocabulary
   4. Romaji File To Kana
   5. Settings file
3. Pal Files
   1. Situations
   2. Percentages
   3. Editing a Pal
   4. Creating a Pal file
   5. Submitting a Pal pack
4. License

Japanese Writing

Japanese is written in a mixture of Kana and Kanji. Kanji are ideograms- symbols which stand for entire ideas, or things. There are several thousand kanji.
Kana are Japanese phonograms- symbols which stand for sound, like the characters of the English alphabet.
To read true Japanese, you must master both kanji, and kana.

Hiragana And Katakana

Just like English has two sets of characters for it's alphabet (upper case and lower case), Japanese Kana has two corresponding sets of characters- Hiragana and Katakana. Hiragana are used for Japanese words while Katakana are used for imported words, or to add emphasis (like using italics). It is possible to represent Japanese words using english characters. Turning Japanese characters into Roman ones is called romanization. The resulting Roman characters are called romaji.

Pronunciation

Cells with a green background have an unusual pronunciation.

Ya Yu Yo K kya kyu kyo G gya gyu gyo S sha shu sho Z ja ju jo T cha chu cho D ja ju jo N nya nyu nyo H hya hyu hyo B bya byu byo P pya pyu pyo M mya myu myo R rya ryu ryo	N W R Y M H N T S K n wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka A i ri mi hi ni chi shi ki I ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku U e re me he ne te se ke E o ro yo mo ho no to so ko O
	P B D Z G pa ba da dza ga A pi bi ji ji gi I pu bu dzu dzu gu U pe be de dze ge E po bo do dzo go O

Hiragana Characters

Ya Yu Yo K きゃ きゅ きょ G ぎゃ ぎゅ ぎょ S しゃ しゅ しょ Z じゃ じゅ じょ T ちゃ ちゅ ちょ D ぢゃ ぢゅ ぢょ N にゃ にゅ にょ H ひゃ ひゅ ひょ B びゃ びゅ びょ P ぴゃ ぴゅ ぴょ M みゃ みゅ みょ R りゃ りゅ りょ	N W R Y M H N T S K ん わ ら や ま は な た さ か あ A ゐ り み ひ に ち し き い I る ゆ む ふ ぬ つ す く う U ゑ れ め へ ね て せ け え E を ろ よ も ほ の と そ こ お O
	P B D Z G ぱ ば だ ざ が A ぴ び ぢ じ ぎ I ぷ ぶ づ ず ぐ U ぺ べ で ぜ げ E ぽ ぼ ど ぞ ご O

Katakana Characters

Ya Yu Yo K キャ キュ キョ G ギャ ギュ ギョ S シャ シュ ショ Z ジャ ジュ ジョ T チャ チュ チョ D ヂャ ヂュ ヂョ N ニャ ニュ ニョ H ヒャ ヒュ ヒョ B ビャ ビュ ビョ P ピャ ピュ ピョ M ミャ ミュ ミョ R リャ リュ リョ	N W R Y M H N T S K ン ワ ラ ヤ マ ハ ナ タ サ カ ア A ヰ リ ミ ヒ ニ チ シ キ イ I ル ユ ム フ ヌ ツ ス ク ウ U ヱ レ メ ヘ ネ テ セ ケ エ E ヲ ロ ヨ モ ホ ノ ト ソ コ オ O
	P B D Z G パ バ ダ ザ ガ A ピ ビ ヂ ジ ギ I プ ブ ヅ ズ グ U ペ ベ デ ゼ ゲ E ポ ボ ド ゾ ゴ O

Table Concepts

• Double Kana- the yellow table
  Double kana are formed by combining a consonant's "i" kana with a smaller version of "ya", "yu", or "yo". For example: "ki" + small "ya" = "kya". Similarly, "gi" + small "yu" = "gyu".
  
  
• Voiced and Semi-Voiced Sound Marks- the red table
  The "B", "D", "Z", and "G" lines look exactly like the "H", "T", "S", and "K" lines respectively, with added "voiced sound marks" (the two dashes at the top right of the kana). The "P" line looks exactly like the "H" line with added "semi-voiced sound marks" (the small circle at the top right).
  
  
• Missing Kana?
  There is no Kana for "wu", "yi", or "ye". And in modern Japanese, "wi" and "we" are non-existant. The Kana that are displayed for "wi" and "we" are the old Kana that were used when those pronunciations still existed.
  
  
• "O" And "Wa"
  The Japanese object marker, "o", uses the kana for "wo" which has a pronunciation of "o". Some people romanize it as "o", while others romanize it as "wo". The Japanese subject marker, "wa", uses the kana for "ha", although the pronunciation is "wa". Some people romanize it as "ha", while others use "wa".
  
  

Basic Program Overview

Requirements

J-Flash is written in Java, and "should" therefore be platform independant. This also means that you will need the Java Runtime Environment installed in order to run the program. You will need verions 1.5.0 or higher. You can download it for free at http://www.java.com/en/. Once Java is installed, simply double click the "J-Flash.jar" file to start the program.
You will also need some Japanese fonts installed in order to see the Japanese characters. To test if you have some Japanese fonts installed, go to some Japanese website (like http://www.yahoo.co.jp/) and make sure you can see Japanese characters (make sure it's actual text, and not just an image).
If you don't have any Japanese fonts installed, http://www.travelphrases.info/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html has several free fonts available for download.

Program Basics

The Program's premise is relatively simple. Select which Kana (or vocabulary) you would like to practice. The program will then provide a clue, and display a randomly generated list of possible answers. You will be given three guesses to select the correct answer. If you fail to select the correct answer on the first try, the clue will reappear later in the same round. Thus, a round will not end until you've selected the correct answer on the first attempt, for each unique clue.
Feed back on how you are doing, and other information, is issued by Hanako- a nice (and sometimes not so nice) anime style character. Alternate versions of Hanako are available, which allow her to speak in English or Japanese. Hanako's may be completely customized, or you may even create your own character.

Vocabulary

Selecting which vocabulary to study is quite different from selecting which Kana to study, as there are so many more Japanese words than there are Kana. Selecting which vocabulary to study is done by selecting which "vocabulary files" the program should use. "Vocabulary files" are unicode (UTF-16) text files with Japanese word information on each line. Every line should contain a Japanese word or phrase (in kanji), followed by a colon (:), followed by the romanization, followed by a colon, followed by the English translation.
Example

一月:ichigatsu:January

Any part may be omitted, except for the semicolons. Every line should contain two, and only two, colons (otherwise, the line will be disregarded). So if you don't know the kanji, you can just leave it out.
Example

:ichigatsu:January

If the kanji is omitted, the program will convert the romaji to kana, and use that to represent the kanji.
I have provided some vocabulary files here that you may use. Feel free to edit those files, or create your own. You can even email your own files to me, and I'll consider uploading them to the site. Making your own vocabulary files can be very useful if you have a set of words you need to memorize for a test. If you are going to make your own vocabulary files, then remember- YOU MUST SAVE THE FILE AS UNICODE (UTF-16), otherwise, it won't work. Even if your vocabulary file doesn't include any Japanese characters.

Romaji File To Kana

Perhaps my favorite feature of this program is it's ability to read in a text file containing romaji, and then displaying the corresponding kana. Those kana may then be copied and pasted into a text document, and viewed later on any computer with a Japanese font (remember though, the text document must be saved as "Unicode text"). I like to use this feature to turn the lyrics of my favorite Japanese songs into kana so that I can try to read it as I listen to the songs. It is the most fun way to study kana that I know of. If you're lazy, it can be kind of hard to find the motivation to study flash cards. But it's easy to find motivation to listen to your favorite Japanese music ^_^ .
When "Hiragana and Katakana" is selected in the menu, words appearing in all caps in the text file will appear as Katakana. Everything else will appear as Hiragana.
J-Flash should recognize most common romanizations. If it doesn't recognize a word as romaji, it will display the entire word as it was found in the text file.
Note: Japanese writing does not require spaces between words; however, I included spaces to make it easier to read.

Settings

All program settings are saved in the file "Properties.txt". If for some reason the program fails to load properly, try deleting the settings- they may have become corrupted somehow.

Pal Files

Pal files specify what Hanako says, when she says it, and what sprite to display at that time. You can easily modify, switch between, or even create your own pal files. Pal files give you the power to decide how you receive feedback, and can also be a creative outlet.
Pal files work by matching a list of possible phrases and an image to a situation in the program coupled with a required percentage.

Situations

There are five situations withing the program:

• Welcome- when the program first starts
• Correct- when the user selects the correct answer
• Wrong- when the user selects the wrong answer
• Force Next- when the user selects the wrong answer so many times (default of 3) that the program simply advances to the next question (For typing games, it's when time runs out)
• New Round- when the new round begins.

Percentages

Percentages divide each situation into subgroups. For example, if the "Welcome" situation has percentages 90, 50, and 0, then the welcome situation is divided into three percentage subgroubs- (infinity,90], (90,50], and (50,0]. Phrases listed for a certain percentage may only be shown if the user's percentage falls within the correct range (ie greater than or equal to the required percentage, but less than the next highest required percentage).

Editing a Pal

To edit Hanako's speech, go to the pal menu and select "Edit Pal". Select a situation and a percent required from their corresponding drop down boxes. You can then specify the sprite image from the image drop down box. In the phrases panel is a list of phrases the pal might say if the specified situation arises and the current percentage of the user is within the selected percentage subgroup. You may add, replace, or delete as many phrases as you like. You can also add or delete percentage subgroups.
Changes are automatically applied to the current session, but won't carry over to the next session, unless you save the changes over the .pal file that you're using (default of "hanako.pal"). You can also save to a different name, and then quickly switch between different configurations by selecting the different ".pal" files after choosing "Change Pal" in the "Pal" menu.

Creating a Pal File

You can also create a ".pal" file that uses your own custom images. Simply place the image directory within the J-Flash directory (I highly recommend using a size of 300x700 pixels and the .png format for all images). Then select "Create Pal" from the "Pal" menu, and enter in the name of your image directory. Now make all desired changes, and save your new ".pal" file.

Submitting a Pal pack

If you would like to submit a set of images, and corresponding ".pal" files, I will consider posting them on the webpage for download, or, if the quality is high enough, possibly in the next release of J-Flash.
To submit, simply zip the ".pal" file(s) and the image directory together, and mail them to jasonscott422 AT yahoo dot com. All accepted submissions will be properly credited to their corresponding creators.

License

Copyright (C) 2006 Jason Scott
Portions Copyright (C) 2006 Tuyet

Send mail to jasonscott422 AT yahoo DOT com

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.