Thank you for preserving such awesome content
As someone new to the Jalup community, I am thrilled and relieved that you not only saved such incredible content from the possibility of abandonment, but improved on the app presentation! Thank you! I’ve already paid for the full package in the app, and I’m loving the quality and experience. Looking forward to seeing what else you have in store for us in the future.
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Response from developer
I'm so glad you like the app! I've got lots of good stuff planned, so stay tuned 😄
Amazing!
Continuing Jalup with this new app is awesome! There are a lot of cool features I did not know I wanted such as reviews not piling up causing me to actually do my reviews more often! The layout of the flash cards are great and very intuitive. The learning feature blows the old Jalup app away as you take the time to learn the card instead of just accepting and waiting until the next review. Overall I highly recommend this app for anyone wanting to learn Japanese!
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Fantastic app with great potential
So far I’ve enjoyed using the app. Quality content with quality audio.
I have two requests for improving my experience. I wish there was a way to automatically play audio when flipping the card. I use the front to quiz my pronunciation and understanding and would like to automatically hear the audio upon flipping the card. Often, I have long car rides. I’d like to play the cards while driving to maximize my studying time.
I have two requests for improving my experience. I wish there was a way to automatically play audio when flipping the card. I use the front to quiz my pronunciation and understanding and would like to automatically hear the audio upon flipping the card. Often, I have long car rides. I’d like to play the cards while driving to maximize my studying time.
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Response from developer
Just released an update adding the ability to control when the audio is played! 😄 Car-mode is still on my backlog, but it's a great idea.
Awesome App with One Big Flaw
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.
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.
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Response from developer
Thanks, this is excellent feedback and makes a lot of sense to me. It's early days so I'm definitely open to changing things up. I'll be thinking about how to best incorporate this advice into a future update!
Great! Just needs the Kanji section added
Great! Just needs the Kanji section added then it will be perfect!
Good audio and good n+1.
Good audio and good n+1.
Response from developer
Glad you like the app! Kanji section is definitely on my shortlist. 🙂
Do you have Nihongo.app? Then this is an Instabuy.
I never knew about Jalup, but should have. If you have and love Nihongo you know what to expect, this is serious quality at a serious price. Pro tools are serious $$$ and “Nihongo Lessons” is in this “professional” space, it has a LOT of structured content in those decks.
My user case: intermediate to advanced, but haven’t used Japanese seriously in years, started to forget things, so bought the full monty as a “refresher course.” Even if you’re at a higher level, give this a download and try the first few decks to get a feel.
I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Bonus that it integrates with Nihongo with very little friction. One of the other reviewers mentioned iPad, I’d love to see the app optimized for iPad but it’s not a dealbreaker. It’s is in my iPhone dock and gets used every day.
Really looking forward to the Kanji decks but busy enough with filling gaps in my grammar and vocabulary now.
My user case: intermediate to advanced, but haven’t used Japanese seriously in years, started to forget things, so bought the full monty as a “refresher course.” Even if you’re at a higher level, give this a download and try the first few decks to get a feel.
I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Bonus that it integrates with Nihongo with very little friction. One of the other reviewers mentioned iPad, I’d love to see the app optimized for iPad but it’s not a dealbreaker. It’s is in my iPhone dock and gets used every day.
Really looking forward to the Kanji decks but busy enough with filling gaps in my grammar and vocabulary now.
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Response from developer
So glad you like the new app! 😁 iPad support and kanji decks are definitely on my short list of features to add in early updates, so expect them in the coming months!
New and Improved
Great rollout, and improvement, from the original Jalup app. I admit that I was skeptical of what this new version would “feel” like. So far, I’m impressed! The appearance, layout and ease of use have all been designed with much care and attention to detail. As is, the app is already great, but I look forward to the future of Nihongo Lessons and how it may grow.
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Great for beginners or review
Saw off Hacker News and was quite impressed by the way this app was done. Visually appealing, suited for tactile learning. This is why Jobs made the iPad.. its a total tool for learning!
Continues a great app
Everything we love about Jalup cranked to 11. The layout of the cards is improved from the original app and the review system seems more thorough since you have to pass a card 3 times to move it to the review pile. This app focuses on the sentence decks, and hiragana and katakana kanji coming at a later date. So far I’m pleased with the app and plan to use it for as long as the dev supports it.
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