Spectra Kanji (Paradigm)
System Requirements: Should run on a 4-meg RAM system; ca. 5-6 Meg
hard drive space; JLK not required
Price: $199 (same as Windows version already available)
Review by Cliff Darnall, Elk Grove High School (IL)
Spectra Kanji, currently available for DOS-machines only but to become
available for Macintosh Machines in the next few months, is a kanji study
tutorial with some powerful features and options. The user has the ability
to generate lists for study based on parameters he or she controls, including
the relative frequency of use in Japanese newspapers, the stroke count,
the grade level taught in Japan, or the index numbers in particular dictionaries,
as well as meaning, reading, and components. Kanji can also be automatically
pasted from a text file into a group or from one group into another. The
program contains the 2,111 kanji for common use and names and even comes
with kanji groups already generated for every issue to date of Mangajin
magazine.
An overview list of kanji in any group is easily available. By clicking
on any of these, the user enters the card view mode. Displayed attractively
at the top of the card are the kanji itself in a large font, as well as
its meaning its stroke count, grade level taught, relative frequency, and
Nelson, Spahn and Hadamitsky, and O'Neill indices. Parts of the card can
be masked. Readings are then given in roomaji, with capitals used
for on-yomi., and with readings for names so indicated. What is particularly
useful for non-native speakers learning the language is the list of graphical
elements which follow, listed in the order in which they are written and
with meanings and pronunciations (when the elements are stand-alone kanji
as well), thus allowing the user to create his or her own mnemonics for
remembering the kanji. By clicking on any of those graphical elements, the
student can reference any of the graphical elements to see, for example,
what other characters the elements are used in.
At the bottom of the card view are buttons allowing the display of useful
reference lists. One list contains compounds which involve the various pronunciations.
An advantage that might allow Spectra Kanji to be used for a large group
presentation is that when the compounds are clicked on, an individual compound
card appears in which the compound itself is written in the extremely large
font. Another shows kanji which are contained within the kanji while another
shows kanji which contain the target kanji within them. A final list shows
words containing the kanji or part of the kanji which have similar on-yomi,
which helps the learner to begin to be able to guess the pronunciation of
unfamiliar kanji in compounds.
Although the program does not allow the user to easily mark and unmark kanji
from a group for additional study, it does have a useful related option.
Then the student feels he has mastered a particular kanji, he or she can
mark it as "familiar." It then appears in blue rather than black
wherever and whenever the kanji appears in Spectra Kanji, even in other
lists and compounds listed under other words. Fortunately for those of us
who forget kanji we have already learned, the familiarity marking can be
toggle back out. Each user can have his or her own personal list of familiar
kanji; the next user merely keys in a his/her own list of familiar kanji.
The labeling of the elements, the powerful search features, and the additional
lists for creating groups are indeed strong points of Spectra Kanji. If
I had my wish list, the mnemonics portion could be made even more valuable
by including graphics showing sketches of how at least the basic graphemes
came about, for example, how éq could be derived from the picture
of a child ; and stroke order diagrams for those basic elements would also
help the novice learner. Although the program lacks sentences showing how
the kanji and compounds are used in context and voice recordings of the
pronunciation of the kanji and compounds, it is still a very powerful study
tool for the serious student of the written language at any level.
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