App Review: GENKI Vocab Cards

Currently, I am majoring in Japanese, and let me just tell you it has not been an easy journey.

There have been many days where I find myself in tears because, I have slacked off and I did not take the proper time and effort to continue to study. Although some days seemed bleak, I have been making great progress! So, I decided to review an app in specific that has helped a lot along the way!

 To study better I made sure that I put this app on my dock so that it will always be one of the first things that I see. 

It is split up unto lessons from both Genki Books, both 1 & 2 (Genki Books are the ones that are primarily used in teaching Japanese in most schools, and this app is directly correlated with them), once you choose what lesson you want to study, you can click on "MyDeck" which gives you: the word, how it is pronounced and its english definition. 

In the right hand corner, it gives you an option to flip the card, which then gives you a complete sentence on how the word is properly used. Which provides grammar help in case you did not know how to properly form a sentence. Afterwards, you can just swipe to the right to study the next word. Once you feel you have studied enough on "MyDeck" you have the option of doing "Check" which quizzes you by providing the Kanji & the hiragana/katakana of the word. If you would like to quickly check if you were correct, simply click on the word and it will provide you with the answer.

 Once you have completed a section, you can always check your progress by holding down on a specific set that you would like to know, it will pop up and inform you: how many you knew, were unsure of, or didn't know. Afterwards, you can easily restore it by highlighting the entire lesson and it will just confirm with you if that is what you would like to do.

In the upper right hand corner, you can see four squares that brings down a quick drop down menu, if you hit "List", then it brings to a master list of the vocabulary words in either: Lessons, English and Japanese. So instead of lugging around the books with you, you can easily check in the palm of your hand!  

Unfortunately, the app currently works only with Apple products, with the most recent iOS update & being that my phone is an android, I just searched for a used iPod 5th generation and found this one for around $80, sure it did not come with a charger or a working camera but that is not the point in me getting it. My iPod is just used for studying Japanese.

Also, if you would like this app, it currently costs: $5.99 

Which personally, did not feel like it was a bad price considering the immense help it has helped me out!

Personally, I would give this app 10/10

It is super easy to use, and the features do help out a lot.

As with any language, it takes a lot of hard work and you really have to put that extra effort in, but keep trying, even if you study for 10-20 minutes a day! At least you are still making attempts to be active with it. That is why, I would recommend this app because it is something you can do on the go, when you are waiting in line, or when you simply have down time!

-misamango