Please beta test Sakugo - app for practicing output in Japanese

[matan1]

Hey everyone!

As a hobby project, I built an app to help me practice writing sentences in Japanese. It basically gives you a sentence in English that you need to translates, and it tracks which vocabulary items you already know via an SRS system. It uses an LLM as a backend.

I wrote it for myself because I really wanted the practice (both the app building practice and the Japanese training practice ) but I find it pretty useful so though I’ll share it with more people and see if it’s useful for anyone else!

Since it’s a hobby project (I’ve been working on it during weekends for the last couple of weeks) there are still a lot of issues that need fixing. I’m opening it now for ~50 users to beta test so please try it out and tell me what you think!

You can sign up at: https://sakugo.app/

P.S. Please note that at least for now, you will need to install a Japanese input system on your device to construct your sentences. There are instructions for how to do that here.

[additionalramen]

Thank you for sharing this! I just signed up as a beta user and did my 20 practice sentences for the day. I thought it was really fun.

One question (for now) - will there be a way to practice more casual sentences in the future? It seemed like the AI was steering me toward using formal Japanese, but ideally I think it would be great to have a way of practicing writing sentences across the casual → formal spectrum.

[zconnor]

I signed up, but I never received a verification email.

[Arctario]

I also just signed up for the beta. In terms of just vocab im probably at around n4, maybe a bit higher just considering known words. What is still really lacking for me is grammar and in general output. I may be able to recognize quite a few words, but being able to recall them, maybe even in the short amount of time required for talking in japanese, is still very difficult for me. I decided i would start at N5 due to my grammar and general output shortcomings.

With this app, even having done the 20 sentences once now, i found myself having quite alot of fun applying rules i learned and really thinking about how to construct a sentence and not just trying to understand input sentences. I felt that this really improves my intuitive understanding of grammar in particular, since alot of the time you can usually kind of autocomplete the meaning of a sentence when you listen to it or read it, even if you dont know or understand a particular grammar structure completely.

Also i kinda found myself surprised at the amount of time i sometimes needed to recall some words or phrases i thought i knew pretty well, but again being able to recognize meanings of words in input seems alot easier than also being able to output the words, not to mention in the short time needed for conversation.

I would love to continue using this and i think this shows alot of promise, since i think its an area of language learning that i (and i imagine alot of others as well) kind of neglect, since there is rarely an opportunity to really apply japanese in this way in my life. I love that we can get basically instant feedback on the sentences through LLMs now and the implementation of the particular errors in a sentence being highlighted and explained in more detail i thought was really helpful as well. I really enjoyed this way of being able to get some output in while also getting feedback in basically real time. While it wouldnt replace any other learning tool im currently using, i think this really fills a niche that i havent seen other apps fill yet (though i might just not be aware of them).

[karatsuba]

Wow! Signed up and did a few sentences. I can already feel this flexing my brain in a different way than normal SRS flashcards. Will keep using it for a few more days and see how it fits into my day. But first impression is very good, I am really enjoying it. Love that it seems to be more about just doing your best and trying than getting it “right.”

[Arctario]

Two things (i would assume bugs)i came across in the meantime.

One is that while it tells me i met my daily quota while only showing 19/20 sentences in the progress bar.

Second is that while on the mainpage it tells me that the quota will reset in ~47 mins (so at my midnight) while in the practice tab it tells me the quota will reset in 10 hours.

[severian]

I haven’t had any luck being able to actually access the page, but I’m interested!

[acyanto]

It looks like the website is down.

[hgauthreaux]

This looks great! But the site is down

[matan1]

I’m so sorry to everyone reporting it’s down! Can you try again now? I think it should be up again.

[matan1]

Thank you for trying it out! Yeah, that’s a really good idea. I think might be because in JLPT context a lot of the vocabulary is business/formal but I think it’s a good idea to artificially encourage the LLM to sometimes ask you to produce a more casual/conversational sentence.

[matan1]

Oh, that’s too bad! If none of the usual things work (searching your spam folder, trying to resend the verification e-mail etc.), you can send me your e-mail to [email protected] and I can see if there’s a way for me to debug what’s going on.

[matan1]

Thank you so much for reporting this! I looked into it and apparently I do have an off by one error that I will try to fix as quickly as possible.
Quota is currently set to reset on PT (Pacific Time) midnight so it should probably reset in 6 hours from now. From your screenshot it looks like the main page probably has a timezone related bug which I will try to fix as well!

[koyakoyakoya]

i’m not sure if this is a bug or if it’s just my computer, but when i tried to type in a password to join, my password suggestion came up. not like asterisks (****) but my literal password lol. (i used a password that i use across a few websites so the browser recognized it.)

i don’t think that’s normal. i don’t recall it happening for any other site i’ve been to recently. it looks like the website was suggesting it, not google, which is why the whole password was suggested. it was fine because i’m alone, but it would have been a little weird if i happened to have someone next to me.

not sure if that was just a problem on my end, but you might like to know!

[matan1]

Wow that sounds pretty bad. It doesn’t seem to happen with my browser (I tried on both chrome and edge). May I ask which browser you are using?

[koyakoyakoya]

i’m using chrome. hopefully it’s just my computer lol but maybe others can chime in if they have the same issue

i only did a few sentences but i love it so far! it gets pretty specific with the corrections. suggesting to level down was also helpful because i’m very humbled by this tool

one suggestion i have is when you finish a sentence and go to the next page, it would be nice if the cursor is automatically in the text field so you can type without having to press it. in bunpro, you can just type and submit and type and submit, which is nice!

[koyakoyakoya]

is there a way to set it so the suggested correct translation only uses words that are within the level you’re studying? in this example, i was suggested to use 叶える, which is apparently n1 according to jisho.org, but i’m on the n4 level.

[matan1]

It’s aware of the vocabulary level of the words and it in general tries to avoid using words from higher levels but sometimes there are slip ups
I think the “correct translation” does show higher level words from time to time, but hopefully it should be very rare for the feedback to “punish” you for not using such a word (e.g. in this case it looks from the color of the textbox that you got a “Great” rating and I assume that it didn’t lower your mastery level for 追いかける).

There are still some misses from time to time but I’m trying to reduce them as much as possible!

[Special_Guest]

A fun little bug. Despite not using とても it still raised the srs by two levels. Ill have to play around with this, it seems relatively fun.

[Special_Guest]

Also living in the land of Anime and Ramen means I speak a bit more slangy which it isnt the biggest fan of, granted I chose the Genki lvl 5 so it most certainly does want certain words huh.