KinhMõ

KinhMõ is a learning app for the Vietnamese Buddhist prayer book of the Linh Thứu pagoda in Berlin, as it is read there at funeral and memorial services: you read the original text, fade translation and pronunciation in underneath it, and tap any word to look it up instantly — with no internet connection. On top of that come the beat of mõ, ding and bell for reciting along, short review rounds through the book's own words, and 35 short articles on what the book takes for granted. READING AND TRACKS The original Vietnamese text stays; misprints are corrected and recorded in the page notes. German, English and a simplified pronunciation settle in underneath it, line by line — or not at all. At the default font size the reading view keeps the same page numbers, the same paragraphs and the same line breaks as the printed book, so opening the real book at the temple lands you on the same place. And to test yourself, Memorize covers every second, third, fourth or fifth word, or veils whole lines together with their tracks — a tap brings one back, and ending the mode leaves the page open as before. That is how you find out whether a page sticks without reading it. LOOKUP Tap a word: what it means in German and English, the Hán-Việt characters behind it — and a note of where the meaning came from. The dictionary ships with the app and is never fetched — with an entry for each of the book's roughly 1,100 words. RECITATION For the pages of the Sunday service, mõ and ding keep the beat and a bell closes the chant, at the tempo the temple speaks them. The text moves with the beat — you follow the rhythm instead of chasing the page. REVIEW A short round over words and lines from the book: tap, choose, arrange — never on a keyboard. It ends after a handful of questions, and tomorrow there is another. FREQUENCY All 48 pages have been counted. Every word in the book is ranked by how often it occurs, so what you meet most you learn first. LEARN 35 short articles: who the figures in the prayers are, what the sections mean, how the ceremony runs and what kinds of text the book holds — sutra, verse, mantra and invocation. EVERYTHING STAYS ON YOUR DEVICE No account, no sign-in, no advertising, no analytics. The app makes no network request at all: the dictionary, the texts and your progress live on the iPhone. German and English, free. ABOUT THE BOOK The book is that pagoda's own compilation: traditional texts, chosen and arranged by that community. The translations are written for this app and, where a parallel edition exists, anchored to freely distributed editions; where a meaning rests on editorial judgement, the app says so in the dictionary.