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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 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 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.