Free-Light Japanese Education Sofeware for Windows & Mac

With the Free Light Japanese program you can learn the Japanese writing system (Hiragana, Katakana and 1945 Jouyou Kanji which all Japanese pupils should learn before going to university), vocabulary and pronunciation by using multimedia techniques. It supports 2 modes teacher's mode and student's mode. In teacher's mode you can construct your own exercises by importing pictures from any painting programs or scanners. Click one of the numbers in the picture to learn how to pronounce and write the items in Japanese. In this screen the numbers are also in Japanese but may be used the traditional Arabic numerals too. Beside Hiragana and Katakana (phonetic letters of Japanese origin), you can learn the most important Kanji characters (ideographic letters of Chinese origin). Each Kanji can be accessed by 3 different methods: component, number of strokes and pronunciation. In pronunciation access method, can you find instantaneously Kanji by using Romaji (English alphabetic notation). We use Hiragana for Kunyomi (Japanese style pronunciation) and Katakana

for Onyomi (Chinese style pronunciation) . Each Kanji holds several pronunciations (2 or 3 for less numerous and up to 10 for more) according to its meaning. You can choose one of the pronunciations by clicking a button of the window. You can learn Hiragana or Katakana by drawing characters with the mouse and it is the computer which recognizes your handwriting. There are 3 levels of difficulty: in easy level, outline and order of tracing are showed, in medium level only outline and in hard level there is no help.

In teacher's mode, you can construct your own exercise by adding up to 20 questions. You select the arrow's direction and then position the item number where you want by dragging it with the mouse. After constructed the exercise, you can display all the answers in order to control the content. You can also print the exercise and do the paper test for your pupils by hiding one of the items: Japanese words, pronunciation or meaning. To open this window, choose at first a question then do the command "Record sound" from the menu "Alphabet". You listen the teacher's voice and then record your own voice in order to compare them. Only in teacher's mode can you record voice above - teacher's voice.

Configuration requirement

Windows Version

Windows 3.1, 4 Meg of Ram, 10 Meg of free space in the hard disk and color monitor VGA or SVGA if possible. A sound card is necessary, if you want to hear or record the voice.

Mac Version

Mac/OS 7.0 or later, 4 Meg of Ram and 10 Meg of free space in the hard disk. A microphone is necessary, if you want to record the voice. The image is not very nice, if you have no color monitor. Free Light Japanese comes on 4 3.5" high density diskettes and a user manual is included.

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