Japanese Vocabulary Wordsearch for Android

This is a game for Android that helps you learn the hiragana, as well as build up your vocabulary in a fun way.

There are loads of applications on the Android platform, and the majority of those are either variations on phrase books or flash-cards.  While these are undoubtedly great tools in their own right it’s great to see something that takes a different approach.  I also love the idea of learning through playing games, as it makes your study seem so much more enjoyable and varied.

Initially I had a couple of issues with the game – most notably that it was a bit sluggish at times on my aging G1, but I have to commend the developers of this application for fantastic support and quick development.   They soon had all the issues I raised fixed, and even took note of other suggestions I had for potential future development.

The game itself is a standard wordsearch – there are three levels:

• Beginner – it shows the words in hiragana, and you find the matching word, also in hiragana.  This gets you used to the forms of the letters and words, but doesn’t help with their meaning (although it does tell you the meaning when you find a match – although you have to be careful to check which word has changed at the bottom when you match it)
• Intermediate – this shows the words in romaji and you have to find them in hiragana.  This does help you with recognition of the hiragana, although I now would like an additional mode that gave the clues and/or answers in katakana as I really don’t like romaji.
• Advanced – this shows the words in English, and you have to find the matching words in hiragana.  Unless your vocabulary is good, then this could be pretty tough as if you don’t know any of the answers (or you guess it to be a word that isn’t in the game’s dictionary) then you’re pretty much stuck.  Actually, if you are stuck, then it’s sometimes possible to stroke randomly on the screen and find words as the game is a pretty forgiving of people with large sausage-like fingers!

So, again, I think I now would like to see katakana being used in the game and I’d also love an additional mode where the clues are in Kanji.  However, as it stands, it’s a great distraction and it’s fun and I’m sure you can fine-tune your recognition while playing even without realising it.

There is also a reference to review your katakana and hiragana, which while I don’t see as being particularly essential it is nice it’s there.

If you want more information, you can follow this link:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.JapaneseVocabWordSearch

Overall I recommend this application, and I highly commend the author for fantastic support and it’s well worth the tiny 60p (99 cents) price!