We had been working on it for 3 months! I've just put online the new Reading Assistant.

The idea is to give you the opportunity to read and understand read Japanese texts without the help of a teacher to explain to you the meaning and structures. You can also listen to the text while reading (playing speed rate adjustable), just like you do with audio books, and click on any sentence to listen to it and get a thorough analysis.

By "thorough analysis", I mean:

• Used vocabulary
• Detail for each Kanji
• Grammatical documents to explain the structures
• Documents for particles
• Documents for counters
• Additional comments when needed

A background audio ambience has been added to the texts to make you feel part of the stories. I advice you to listen to them with earphones to get the most out of it.

The website has provided many tools to work your Japanese by "elements" so far, I mean by word, particle, Kanji, etc. With the new Reading Assistant, Japan Activator takes a new direction where you'll be able to learn natural Japanese. Instead of learning by heart many elements, put into practice immediately and develop your competencies.

When you feel at ease, take the quiz to assess yourself. But to pass it you'll need to make less than 4 mistakes, otherwise you'll have to read it again. There will be various texts for all levels, but if you know absolutely nothing about the Japanese language, you'd better spend some time in the lessons section first.

For the time being, the Reading Assistant has 5 texts, and we are already working on new ones, especially the end of Kenta's story.

Check out this new tool!

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Posted on Dec 4, 2013, 9:04:40 AM	#17
Administrator Yes more is coming, thank you fo your support

Posted on Dec 3, 2013, 3:17:13 PM	#16
Krlosmiranda12 Awesome!! Thank you very much for creating this tool, it is very helpful and fun to use! I really hope you can add more materials!

Posted on Sep 9, 2013, 3:28:08 PM	#15
Administrator @Johan77: it's a tool that uses web technologies not well supported by tablets yet, so it's a tool to use with a browser on the internet, not a part of JA Sensei. I'll need to readapt it later for tablets.

Posted on Sep 9, 2013, 3:25:24 PM	#14
Johan77 As much as I like to see this announcement, I must say that I dont hear anything and dont see a play button anywhere. Im using an android tablet. Otherwise it could be finally a solution to all my listening comprehension problems.

Posted on Aug 24, 2013, 7:09:43 PM	#13
Loexdramorama I'm so glad to see that. It will help me a lot to learn japanese. Thanks.

Posted on Aug 23, 2013, 2:10:54 PM	#12
Administrator Yes I intend to add more materials.

Posted on Aug 22, 2013, 12:35:58 AM	#11
Mespina0 I think this audiobook feature would be golden if it was a seperate dedicated service and if it had hundreds or thousands of materials like storys, articles, conversations etc.

Posted on Aug 20, 2013, 6:22:04 PM	#10
Administrator About "aru no da", there is a grammar document explaining it: http://www.japan-activator.com/en/lessons/grammar/article/id/90 I suggest you check the "particles" section, too, because endings with kedo, yo, and others are explained.

Posted on Aug 20, 2013, 1:33:50 PM

#9

Kathrin150985 first of all I think this page is awesome! And the new feature as well! One suggestion in general: I live in Japan now and what is very confusing for me sometimes are the "natural" endings or things native speakers add to make the senetence sound "softer". Like ".... aruNdakedo..." there are often "n"s or endings like in "ikoyo"(derived from "iku") - what is "oyo"?? (now I know). And I saw that these things also show up in some of your examples or in the latest reading assistant. Maybe you could add one two words about it in the comments.

Posted on Aug 17, 2013, 12:41:17 PM	#8
Kareema That's a great addition to your site and helps me a lot while preparing for my JLPT N5 - thank you very much! What I like most is the combination of the different information sources centered around a nice story (text with Kanji, vocabulary, grammar, audio). You can really work with the texts! Would be nice to have something similar in JA-Sensei, too.

Posted on Aug 11, 2013, 5:52:43 PM	#7
Administrator @Lynmar fixedn thanks again @Melandar5308: this tool is not optimized for tablets or smartphones, this is a tool for the website, so no improvement will be done here, but I may make a new tool for those devices later. Yes I intend to add more lessons, there are some constraints with this activity I have to deal with first.

Posted on Aug 11, 2013, 3:35:56 PM	#6
Lynmar sorry, hate to do this again...kenta's adventures part 2 quiz question #8 has "to look" twice...thanks :-)

Posted on Aug 10, 2013, 8:03:47 PM

#5

Melandar5308 Unfortunately, going to the reading page on my tablet, the reading assistant window overlays the reading page and cannot be moved or closed in order to read. Is there going to be any new lessons? I have been looking onsite for more than a year now and still none. I guess not but would like confirmation so if it is defnitely not, I have to source elsewhere. I have loved the site from early days but without lessons, I feel it is like having all the excellent tools but nothng to use the tools on. Best regards. Chris Wiseman.

Posted on Aug 10, 2013, 9:50:31 AM	#4
Administrator I'm very glad this new tool can help you, thanks for your support. @Lynmar: I've fixed the question, thanks.

Posted on Aug 10, 2013, 7:54:01 AM	#3
Lynmar I'm sorry if this is the wron place for this comment, I didn't see a way to enter it on the story page...I found a small mistake in kenta's adventure part 1 quiz - #10 has 2 answers "electric train" (the first one is wrong) Excellent work, btw...

Posted on Aug 10, 2013, 6:29:38 AM	#2
Lynmar I've been looking for something like this! Thank you, thank you, thank you! can't wait to get started!

Posted on Aug 9, 2013, 8:01:47 PM	#1
Nuriav Nice work! I had a look at it and it's a very interesting tool and good complement for the rest on the site. I did frustrarting searching around looking for audiobooks and this has been a great surprise! Thanks for your effort.

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