The smartphone bandwagon

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Last week, I finally caved and got an android phone. I’ve held off mostly because of the monthly expense but the cost turned out to be mostly the same by switching to a family plan. I spend most of my time at home or work so I haven’t really found much use for the device. However, I can now start trying out and reviewing android apps for learning Japanese. I’ve already tried OpenWnn Plus and Simeji for Japanese input. So far, I haven’t use both enough to really have an opinion on which is better.

Any other android apps I should be looking at?

11 thoughts on “The smartphone bandwagon”

  1. I use:
    JED (Japanese-English Dictionary)
    Evernote
    iKnow!
    Kanji Recogniser
    Very East Japanese Keyboard
    And I’m trialing MultiLing Keyboard which uses a radial menu for kana.

    Might try out Simeji!

  3. Hello!
    I like
    – “AEdict” : an english-japanese dictionary
    – “Obenkyo” : to memorize kana, kanji (JLPT or grades) ,numbers and soon vocabulary
    – TunIn : an app to listen to japanese radio (and from other countries)

  4. こんにちは、

    I have ja sensei and obenkyo。
    I just started learning. I enjoy your site learning alot from it. Keep on doing what you’re doing

  5. Just tried wwwjdic. Doesn’t look like you can use it offline but I guess it does have a more convenient ui compared to the regular site. I’d have to say nice thing about having a smartphone is that you can use the net with one hand. Definitely handy while holding a baby!

  6. Sadly, I can only think of mostly iPhone apps at the moment (that’s what I have). However, for beginners, I actually really like the demo of Human Japanese (Lite). Similar to your guide, everything is explained clearly and in plain English. The Lite version has quite a few chapters available. It’s my favorite beginner’s app for Japanese.

    Anki for Android (Ankidroid) I assume is similar to the iPhone app.

    • Maybe I will check out Human Japanese again. When I first looked at it way back when it first came out, it was pretty awful.

      I used to be an Apple fan before they started locking everything down. I have to say though that Android isn’t very easy to use. The UI is pretty inconsistent.

  7. Which Android phone did you get? The Sony Ericsson Xperia has a really good IME called “POBox” that works really well for conveniently switching between Japanese and English. Not as good as some of the English keyboards out there but saves you from switching input methods all the time or dealing with mediocre prediction and correction capabilities (Simeji, OpenWNN). You can also check out ATOK, which is the best Japanese IME for PCs ported to Android but which left too much lacking in the English department for me – it may have been updated now.

    For a more consistent user interface, consider installing a custom ROM on your phone like MIUI. I use CyanogenMod 6, and rooting my phone and installing it was the best thing I ever did. I think that while Android can seem a little bit fragmented at times that will go away as you get your knowledge of how to use each app comfortably. If you had asked me a year ago what I thought and what I think today about Android I would give two completely different answers. There are some underlying concepts that run across the OS that make using it much faster than using an iPhone IMO – a back button and menu button, for example, although some might say that these buttons are integrated into the apps themselves on iOS… for me though, I couldn’t live without them.

    For Japanese I also use DroidWing with a J-J dictionary – best dictionary app for Android if you can find an EPWING copy of your dictionary of choice, which is not hard with a bit of web searching. Also allows searching of online dictionaries, favoriting of definitions, and a good history of everything you have looked up.

    Then there’s AnkiDroid, which is excellent and getting better all the time. And it goes without saying that putting the UI itself into Japanese is good for you.

    • I have the HTC Sensation. The phone is locked down so looks like I”m stuck switching input methods.

  8. I didn’t want to buy android phone because they don’t have a single multilanguage keyboard like iphone has, but then my friend told me about smart keyboard pro, I took a look at it on his phone and then decided to buy android phone 🙂
    it’s just as good as iphone’s keyboard, but to have kana to kanji converter and autocompletion and autocorrection for other languages it requires additional packages (which are free)

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