I am interested in Japan and the Japanese language. I lived in Sendai, Japan for a year from July 1998 through July 1999.
As with any student learning Japanese, I have thousands of flashcards of vocabulary words and characters I have made, studied, and forgotten over the years. In the past few years, while studying at DePaul University's Japanese Language Program , I started typing the flashcards into a Japanese word processor and printing out the flashcards. More recently, I have started working on Java applications to help anyone with a web browser study Japanese.
I have been working for over a year now on Java Kanji Flashcard 500, a program that lets you study the 500 most commonly occurring kanji. These kanji account for 85% of the kanji you will find in a newspaper. Each kanji includes the meaning, reading, stroke order animation, and example compounds. You don't need a Japanese system to use this program! Please try it and let me know what you think!
As of June 23 (1999) Kiki's Kanji Dictionary is online, just two weeks after I wrote the following.
I am working on a Java program that will combine Jim Breen's two main Japanese dictionaries, EDICT, a Japanese-English dictionary, with KANJIDIC, a Kanji dictionary, to brovide a browsable Kanji Dictionary. Here's the original Japanese HTML version.
The problem with current web "search" dictionaries is they only help you find a single word. I want to help people learn relations between kanji, and take advantage of serendipity. This example of my Compound Explorer Concept demonstrates how kanji readings can be learned by examining many compunds that use the same readings. Imagine if all the kanji were links to other pages! Here's a Japanese HTML version.
I have many files containing vocabulary lists from textbooks and reference materials I have purchased. These are mostly probably copyrighted somehow, but I do have some generic lists you may find useful.
You will need a browser that can display Japanese to see the following pages:
Well, that's it for now.
