Pick5Grammar

The history of this project came from a problem I found with my study of Japanese. I became skilled enough at reading Japanese, but when writing it, not quite so much. So my input was decent, my output was horrible. Along with that, being able to take a grammar concept and remember it and actually write an example sentence with it was difficult. This project's aim is to allow me to practice better output of Japanese.

To do this, there's an excel file (see Example.xlsx) that has a similar structure as what I'm personally aiming for. In this, I have one grammar concept, and the various notes (including personal) that support that note. As I learn something new, and write it down, my goal is to update my own version of the spreadsheet to include that entry. Then, by running this every day - I get 5 entries that I should not only review, but also do a few example sentences from each. These examples would then be corrected either through lang-8, tutor, etc.

Output is very important in language use, and while there are many ways of approaching the goal, there are none that do it this way (that I'm aware of). Most online tools simply drill you on it through use of flashcards, fill in the blank, or cloze sentences. While effective as well, I think being able to create your own example sentences are even better and are more applicable to your own daily life.

Building and Running

Right now, this project is in .NET Core, as a console application. I don't have pre-built binaries up here yet, but if people want them, please create an issue and I'll upload ones for Linux/Windows/OSX.

You can download .NET Core from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download

Once you have it installed, and this repository checked out, cd into the directory and run:

dotnet run   # Gives command line options
dotnet run -i <INPUT_EXCEL>   # Load the identified excel file, use Excel.xlsx if you want to see the test output
dotnet run -i <INPUT_EXCEL> -c N  # Same as above, but you can specify the number of entries you want to see

Easier Execution

Running the above can be a real chore to have to do time and time again. One way to get around this is to 'publish' the application, then copy the binaries to your path, then set an alias. To do this on OSX (if you want more instructions for other OSes, submit at ticket):

cd Pick5Grammar
dotnet build
dotnet publish -c Release -r osx-x64
mkdir ~/tools
mkdir ~/tools/lib
cp -R bin/Release/netcoreapp2.1/osx-x64/publish ~/tools/lib/pick5grammar
echo "alias pick5='~/tools/lib/pick5grammar/Pick5Grammar -i /PATH/TO/INDEX.xlsx'" >> ~/.bashrc   #or .zshrc
source ~/.bashrc  #or .zshrc

A much better solution than the above is to also make a ~/tools/bin directory, do an ln -s between the lib/pick5grammar/Pick5Grammar and the bin/Pick5Grammar, and update your PATH to include ~/tools/bin. User based shell commands are best here anyways.

Running the alias, after the above, should give output something like:

Double Particles
                Proficiency: N4
                Minna Reference: 27 #7
                DXJG Reference: 
                So Matome: 
                Journal: G2-213

Vています
                Proficiency: N4
                Minna Reference: 28 #2
                DXJG Reference: B155
                So Matome: N4.W4D5
                Journal: G2-215/G2-73

できます
                Proficiency: N4
                Minna Reference: 27 #4
                DXJG Reference: B8
                So Matome: 
                Journal: G2-212

それで
                Proficiency: N4
                Minna Reference: 28 #4
                DXJG Reference: B413
                So Matome: N4.W3D4
                Journal: G2-217

Vた＋らいいですか
                Proficiency: N4
                Minna Reference: 26 #3
                DXJG Reference: 
                So Matome: N4.W2D1.3
                Journal: G2-207

Limitations and Roadmap

Right now, this is a very simplisitic program. Mostly because I'm starting my excel file out fresh on this and am going to re-review all concepts once again. With that said, long term, my goal is to allow for a "weighted review", which is more akin to the idea of an SRS-style of review. Meaning, it will keep a cached view of what has been assigned and then cycle them according to the SRS methodology. This would be more beneficial for long-term remembering of the concept.

Also, the excel file is very strict on formatting. It's expected to be the first tab of the excel file (but you can have others), and the columns must remain the same name. If people are using this with other references/languages, please create an issue and I'd be more than willing to make this more flexible (e.g. concept as first column, any number of other columns allowed and dynamic names - which isn't too hard to add).