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The JAVASensei Homepage

THE JAVASENSEI IS FREEWARE AND FOR
PRIVATE AND NONCOMMERCIAL USE ONLY
(C) 2005 Joachim Tesch

Click here to start the JAVASensei 1.1.1 Applet

Please check out the system requirements section in case of problems.
(Appletsize: 144KB)

News

• [060530] Increased Applet width to ensure proper display on Mac OS X (Safari+Firefox)
• [050921] Release 1.1.1. Uses Hepburn romanization for (ji) and (zu)
• [030228] Includes browsing mode. Runs also in recent browsers (Mozilla, JavaVM 1.4). Still available here.
• [010224] PALMSensei for Palm/Handspring released.
• [991004] Release 1.0.4 (new training mode and two bugfixes)
• [990730] Release 1.0.3 (changed URL and email address in about-dialog)
• [990505] The JAVASensei was rated "TOP 25%" by JARS
• [990308] Release of version 1.0.2. Update of  JAVASensei screenshots on the webpage.
• [990224] Release of version 1.0.1.
• [990205] Initial Release of the JAVASensei (Version 1.0) and its homepage.

Purpose

The JAVASensei is a Java applet/application, which helps you learning the Japanese Hiragana and Katakana alphabets. You can train the syllable of a character and also the writing of the character itself. The following screenshots give you an overview of the functionality:

The setup screen for the training session.	The training screen for the syllable training. The Japanese character is displayed on the left and the user types his guess on the right side.
The training screen for the character writing. The syllable for the Japanese character is displayed on the left and the user paints the character on the right side.	After clicking the Check-Button, the correct character is displayed and the user must decide, if he was right. Sorry folks: NO AUTOMATIC IMAGE RECOGNITION HERE... Remember: this stuff is for FREE! :)
After the training session you can look at your training result. For the statistic affecionado: the average amount of trained syllables per second is also displayed.

Furthermore there's a browsing mode which helps you to memorize the characters similar to Flashcards.

System requirements

Any Java 1.1 (or higher) capable browser or Sun's Java Runtime Environment V1.1.7 (or higher). If you have an older browser or one without a Java Runtime Environment, then you might want to check out if Sun's JAVA-Plugin is available for your browser and operating system.

Successfully tested with

• Firefox 1.0.6 with Java Plug-in 1.5.0 on Windows XP
• Mozilla 1.6 with Java Plug-in 1.4.2_02 on Linux 2.6.6
• Mozilla 1.7 with Java Plug-in 1.4.2_01 on Windows XP Pro
• Mozilla 1.3b with Java Plug-in 1.4.1 on Windows98
• Mozilla 1.1 with Java Plug-in 1.3.1 on Linux 2.4.19
• Safari on Mac OS X 10.3.7
• Netscape Communicator 4.7 on Windows98
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 on Windows98
• Java Runtime Environment 1.5.0
• Java Runtime Environment 1.4.1
• Java Runtime Environment 1.1.8

It does not run with

• Netscape Communicator 4.0.5 (or older)

Please contact me, if you were able to run JAVASensei (or not) with other browsers/platforms.
If you have problems with Netscape Communicator with version between 4.0.5 and 4.7 then you should use the older JAVASensei 1.0.4.

Download

You may use the JAVASensei on private and noncommercial websites and as a Java application for free, as long as you provide the following link to the JAVASensei-Homepage:

http://joachim.tesch.com/sensei/

Online version

You can start the online version of JAVASensei by clicking on this link.
If you have problems running the online version, then visit Sun's Java Test Page to see if Java is properly installed on your system.

Offline version

You can download the JAVASensei code and install it on your machine for offline access.

1. Click here to download the JAVASensei archive (sensei111.zip)
2. Unzip the contents to a local folder of your choice.
3. Applet usage: Load sensei.html in your browser.

Note that you can edit the sensei.html file to increase the size of the JAVASensei.
4. Application usage (requires Java Runtime Environment 1.1.7 or higher):
   Doubleclick the extracted jar file and your OS will start the program. If this fails then open the command prompt and change to the folder with the extracted JAVASensei files and type
   jre -cp sensei111.jar Sensei
   or
   java -cp sensei111.jar Sensei
   Feel free to adjust the window size to your needs when running the JAVASensei.

Note from da creator

I started learning Japanese in 1998 and realized soon, that it would be great  to have a utility which helps you in learning the 104 different characters of Hiragana/Katakana. It would be even greater, if you could also do that during work at the office (of course during lunch break) without installing any special software. Therefore it was time for some coding in a great programming language: The JAVASensei was born.

Enjoy!
r@So

History

• 1.1.1:
  Uses Hepburn romanization. Changed ji => (ji) and zu => (zu).
  Added Manifest for jar file quickstart.
• 1.1:
  JavaVM 1.1-1.4 compatibility (Thanks to Sven Bandwidth for the bugreport).
  Added browsing mode.
  Bugfix for immediate training mode exit.
  Fixed flashing black background in IE5.
  Faster GUI switches.
• 1.0.4:
  New training mode for syllables "a-n".
  Bugfix for "da" (was "za").
  Bugfix for result screen of infinite tries mode.
  Thanks to Thilo Planz for the information and the suggestions.
• 1.0.3: Changed URL and email address in about-dialog.
• 1.0.2: Changed "hu" to "fu".
• 1.0.1: Enlarged width of "Last syllable" field.
• 1.0: Inital release.

Related links

• PALMSensei
  Palm version of the JAVASensei. Hit the road and feed you brain!
• The Sushi World Guide (www.sushi.to)
  The definitive list of all the Sushi Restaurants in the world. Great design and cool domain. Tonga rulz!

Contact information

Please send feedback and bug reports to:

Email: joachim@tesch.com

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