FEATURES

MINI TUTORIAL

The lesson planner is the key to controlling which lessons are included in exercises, and the planner uses the dictionaries listed in the Exercise list to do its work (you can view this list by selecting Exercise list... from the Dictionary menu).

To bring up the lesson planner, select Lesson planner... from the Exercises menu. You will see lessons broken down by year and lesson numbers, an indication of the types of words in each lesson, and the name of the dictionary in which the lesson resides. In this demo, there are two lessons being used (the ticks in the Use box indicate this). To look at the list of words included in any lesson, click the multi-colored icon and the words will be shown in the Output list.

To start lessons, simply select Start from the Exercises menu. The exercise dictionaries will be scanned and various words selected automatically for presentation. Note: since you can't have the help dialog open whilst doing exercises, please read these further instructions before trying out the exercise system.

The exercise system will randomly present words starting with their Japanese Kanji or with their English definition. Thus, you will be automatically tested both on your recognition of Kanji, and your recall of the Kanji which corresponds with an English definition. JWM learns about your Japanese skills by the feedback you provide by pressing the Right, Wrong and Skip buttons during the exercise process. These buttons become active when your input is expected.

An example of the Exercise dialog is shown below. On the right side of the dialog are the Success bar (which grows faster the more words you get right) and the Exercise timer (which rotates once per hour and provides immediate feedback on how long you have been exercising). The Speedkeys (which correspond to each of the feedback buttons) are shown below the buttons, and to get information about any Kana or Kanji, simply click it when it is displayed.
In the example Exercise dialog above, the English definition is displayed, and the prompt indicates that a Kanji will be displayed next. At this point, you would be expected to write down the Kanji which corresponds to the English definition, click the mouse to display the Kanji and then compare your answer with the Kanji shown. If you got it right, you would press the Right button, if you got it wrong you would press the Wrong button, and if it the first time that the word was displayed, press the Skip button. The Exercise dialog would now look like that shown below.

JWM learns about your knowledge of each word from your answers, and adjusts future exercises accordingly. After words have been exercised for a number of sessions (usually 3 sessions, with the Normal emphasis level set), the word would move from Learning to Mastered status, and then come up less often. Mastered words are mixed in with words you are currently learning, providing you with automatic revision of previously learned Kanji and vocabulary. This saves you an enormous amount of time and effort over the long term, since you never need to track back over old vocabulary and Kanji lists. No other study system in the world offers this powerful facility.

To add more words to exercises, simply open the Lesson planner and tick the Use box of another lesson. When you next do exercises, this lesson will also be included. The idea is that you progressively add more lessons over the course of each study week, progressively building your Japanese vocabulary and Kanji skills. Of course, you can also add your own words and lessons by editing (or creating) dictionaries and adding them to the Exercise list.