pyWords -
a program for drilling japanese vocabulary

Introduction
The pyWords program can help you train on the vocabulary found in the books Genki I and Genki II by Japan Times. It is completely free. The idea behind pyWords is to get a more graphically appealing way of studying word lists. The program basically works by giving you an english word/expression after which you enter the corresponding japanese word/expression in hiragana or katakana.

Features

Contains premade lists of the full vocabulary in Genki I, II. Drilling includes verb particles (eg. "somebody ni au"). Displays vocabulary words using both kana and kanji (you don't have to know the kanji). Highly customizable (you can change the background, text colors, etc.) Looks nice.

Usage
The program runs in fullscreen mode and does not use the mouse, only input through the keyboard. The following keys are used in pyWords:

	ESC	Quit
	SPACE	Advances to next word (if current answer is correct)
	ENTER	Advances to next word (even if current answer is wrong)
	F1	Reveal correct answer
	UP/DOWN	Adjust transparency of texts with white backgrounds.

You get the phrase in English (possibly accompanied by the Japanese phrase written in kanji and kana) and answer by writing the phrase in kana. When the entered word is correct, you press the space key to advance to the next question. Otherwise typing F1 shows what the answer was and then you can type the space key.

Screenshot

Requirements

A PC equipped with Windows. A Japanese font with both kana and kanji.

A free, though a little strange, font is mikachan. Another font which is very good has filename “hgrskp.ttf”. You do not need an IME for japanese, that is in general you need not being able to enter japanese on your system.

Installation
Download the file setup-pyWords.exe and save it at any place (but remember where). Double click the saved file to start the installation and follow the steps. After the installation you can start pyWords through Start menu-Programs-pyWords-pyWords. Remember that you quit by pressing the escape key.

Customization
The pyWords program can be customized by editing files in it’s subfolder data. This folder can be reached through the start menu Start menu-Programs-pyWords-pyWords data folder. The easiest customisation is to change to background image, which can be done by replacing the existing back.JPG with another image. For backgrounds I can recommend the page TopWalls! / Hoshinavi.

More advanced customizations can be made by editing the settings.ini file. The lines that start with # in this file are comments which describe the settings following them. Please feel free to experiment. The format for colors is the same as HTML color codes, that is #AABBCC. There are also two special names, “black” and “white". Except from these you have to use the #AABBCC syntax. If you don’t know how to construct these color codes look at this page.