73 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
73 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
# Yomichan
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A while ago I started working on an [Anki](http://ankisrs.net/) plugin in an attempt to solve various annoyances I
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encountered when trying to read Japanese books on my computer. Yomichan is the result of my efforts and makes Japanese
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sentence/vocabulary mining trivial.
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The software I was using for mining up to now was [Rikaichan](http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/). I'm sure most
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people studying the Japanese language are familiar with this browser extension and probably have it installed in
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Firefox. Although pretty amazing, this tool is bound to Firefox. Firefox is obviously not a book reader: it doesn't
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behave well with large text files, doesn't remember where you last stopped reading, and most importantly there was no
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integration with Anki. As such, adding new vocab to my Anki deck was annoying; I wanted to be able to do this with one
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mouse click. After several hours of work, Yomichan could do this and much more.
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Yomichan can be downloaded from the its [Anki shared addon page](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/934748696), the
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[Yomichan page on GitHub](https://github.com/FooSoft/yomichan/) or directly from [my
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homepage](http://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/index/yomichan.zip). There is an automatic update checker in the plugin
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that (unless you disabled it) will notify you when new versions become available.
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## Basic Usage Instructions
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1. Make sure you are running the latest version of Anki.
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2. Open your vocab deck and note the fields that are used in your deck.
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3. Launch Yomichan from the tools menu inside Anki.
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4. Open the text file you want and you will see its contents in the Yomichan. Your layout and color scheme will look
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different because the screenshot shows my personal settings.
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5. To look up words hover your mouse over them while pressing the middle mouse button (usually this is your scroll
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wheel). You can also press and hold shift instead if you like (or your mouse has no center button).
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6. To set up your Anki deck for Yomichan select Preferences from the Edit menu and you should see a screen that looks
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like this:
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7. Now you should add markers such as `{expression}`, `{reading}`, `{reading}` and `{sentence}` to specify how new
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cards should be created. Card fields will vary depending on your deck model.
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8. When you look up definitions you will have the option to create Anki cards for them with one click. You will see the
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icons for performing these actions next to each item. *Icons for actions which update your decks won't show up if
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Anki thinks you can't add a fact with those items*. This likely means that they would either be duplicates of
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existing cards in the deck or that Yomichan hasn't been properly set up for your deck model.
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Here is what the icons mean (in order from left to right):
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* Add term in Kana form even it can be written in Kanji (e.g. べんきょうか).
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* Add term as it appears in the dictionary including Kanji (e.g. 勉強家).
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* Copy the expression, reading and definition for the term to the clipboard.
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## Keyboard Shortcuts
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By request, I've added several keyboard shortcuts which make Yomichan even easier to use:
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| Shortcut | Command |
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|------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|
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| `Shift` | Search under cursor |
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| `]` | Move search cursor forwards |
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| `[` | Move search cursor backwards |
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| `Shift` + `Ctrl` + `#` | Add current Kanji at index 0 - 9 to deck |
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| `Ctrl` + `#` | Add current term at index 0 - 9 to deck |
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| `Alt` + `#` | Add current term at index 0 - 9 to deck as Hiragana |
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## Importing Vocabulary
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Yomichan is capable of importing vocabulary lists from plain text files and the vocabulary deck database the [Amazon
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Kindle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle) automatically generates when you look up words in the built-in dictionary
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(this file can be found as `/system/vocabulary/vocab.db`). Note that importing does not create flash cards
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automatically, but rather outputs the contents of the file to the Vocabulary and Kanji panes so that you can add facts
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the same way as when reading within Yomichan.
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