In the next weeks I wanna do some reviews for some apps of the Windows Phone 7. I choosed apps which I like and I think that could be for interesting for other users too. So lets just get right into it.
App Name
Human Japanese
Cost
9.99$ (8.99€) / trial version
Overall rating
4/5
Overview
Since I got a kind of addiction to the Japanese language, I started to study it some month ago. The first thing in my mind was: “How could I learn that language in my speed with my busy time schedule I have?”. So I decided to have a look in the Markeplace. What you can find is a bunch of Japanese learning software. The good thing about the Windows Phone is, that you can learn in the train or in situations where you usually stare at the wall bored and wait for the thing to come. Most of them cost around 0.99$ to 1.99$. That price is ok, but they lack of implementation a lot. And either the design is horrible or the content is pretty sparse.
The positive sites
Human Japanese instead has both of it. A good design and the functionality is the 500 pages of content which not only teach you some words like “ありがとう”(arigatou = thank you) but the app brings the student also closer to geographical, historical and cultural facets of Japan and its language. Furthermore it teaches you Hiragana and Katakana (two of the three used alphabets) and also the stroke order with animations how to write them properly. For people who have problems to pronounce the given vocabulary, the can listen to over 1800 recordings. I found everything of that pretty helpful for studying in the train.
The negative sites
Anyway, there are still some drawbacks and limitations. The biggest one is the huge price compared to other apps (it’s 9.99$). But for that I have to say that you can download the trial version which gives you around 20% of the content for free. So you have plenty of content to study which includes the full Hiragana alphabet! The other somewhat bigger drawback is the responsiveness. Sometimes the app didn’t react when I touched buttons on the touchscreen for some seconds. This is not very often but it is still sometimes anoying
Pros
- A lot of good content (500 pages)
- Recordings of every teached vocabulary
- Learning games and interesting stories to keep the motivation up
- Dictionary to lookup for the vocabulary
- The trial version is pretty big (around 20% of the content is for free)
Cons
- Sometimes responsiveness when you press on the buttons is slow
- The price – 8.99€ (9.99$) – is pretty high for a smartphone app
- This app is not for advanced studies of Japanese
Possible Improvements
- Make a bit lower price since many user will be deterred to buy this app because of the price