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MnemoLingua

Learn a language with ready-made decks, and write the characters by hand.

The cartridge id is @mnemosyne-plugins/mnemo-lingua. Its code lives at Mnemosyne-OS/MnemoLingua, under the MIT licence.

The decks​

Pick the Language learned at the top: English, Japanese or Chinese.

English, with translations in English, French or Spanish:

  • Level A1: 1,266 cards in 25 themes. The A1 words of the CEFR-J word list, each with an example sentence, plus grammar sentences.
  • Level A2: 1,467 cards in 24 themes.
  • Level B1: 2,524 cards in 23 themes.
  • Travel: 58 phrases in seven themes, from The basics to Emergencies.

Japanese:

  • Kana: the 46 hiragana and the 46 katakana, with their Hepburn reading.
  • Kanji N5: the kanji of the old JLPT level 4, with their meanings and their on and kun readings.

Chinese:

  • HSK 1: the 150 words of the 2012 HSK level 1, with their pinyin.

Start a session​

  1. Tick the Themes you want. All and None toggle them at once.
  2. The deck shows Today: the cards to review and the new ones. New cards a day sets how many new cards come in.
  3. Press Start the session.

Each card is reviewed in two directions, each with its own progress: "What does this mean" and "How do you say it". Press Show the answer, then I knew it or I didn't know. A missed card comes back at the end of the same session, then follows five boxes: 0, 1, 3, 7 and 21 days.

This card is wrong takes a card out of review. It is listed under Reported cards, with Put back into review.

Listen reads a word with a voice installed on your computer, in the language you learn. Without one, MnemoLingua says pronunciation is not available.

Write by hand​

For Japanese and Chinese, you draw each character stroke by stroke, with a mouse, a pen or a finger. A new character is shown first: Watch the strokes…, then Your turn.

MnemoLingua checks each stroke: its shape, its direction, where it starts and ends, and its place in the order. It says what went wrong, for example "the right stroke, the wrong way round". On the third miss, the right stroke draws itself. Show the order costs points. I don't know shows how the character is written.

The first download​

The Japanese and Chinese data are downloaded once, from a screen in the cartridge. That screen names each source and its licence before you press Download the strokes, Download the dictionary and the strokes or Download the word list and the strokes. The data stays on your computer.

How the decks were checked​

No native speaker has read the decks yet, and the deck screen says so. Each English card went through three model passes. A card a pass disagreed with is withdrawn and never shown. The deck screen counts them. The Chinese translations were written for MnemoLingua and are not reviewed yet.

Where your data goes​

  • Your progress is kept by Mnemosyne OS as the cartridge's saved state. Outside Mnemosyne OS, MnemoLingua cannot keep it.
  • The English decks ship with the cartridge and work offline.
  • The Japanese and Chinese data stay on your computer after their download. Then they work offline.

Data sources and licences, as listed in the cartridge:

  • English words and grammar: CEFR-J Wordlist 1.5 and Grammar Profile, Tono Laboratory, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, free for research and commercial use when cited.
  • Japanese strokes: KanjiVG by Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • Kanji meanings and readings: KANJIDIC2 by the EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  • HSK 1 words and pinyin: complete-hsk-vocabulary by drkameleon, MIT.
  • Chinese strokes: hanzi-writer-data (Make Me a Hanzi), Arphic Public License.