Keisetsu蛍雪
A flashcard program for studying Japanese and Chinese vocabulary from your own decks.
Type romaji and watch it turn into kana. Type numbered pinyin and get tone marks. Draw kanji and hanzi stroke by stroke, or learn words from pictures. Miss a card and it comes back until you get it right, all with a little study buddy cheering you on.
Windows needs no install and no Python. Just unzip and run.
Meet your Study Mascot 勉強のお供
Irasshai~! I'm Maneki-Neko, the lucky beckoning cat. In Japan my waving paw invites good fortune through the door. Here, I'm inviting you to study!
I sit beside your flashcards while you work. I dance when you get answers right, flinch when you miss, fume when the same cards keep tripping you up, and doze off if you leave me alone too long.
Click me to wake me up, or hover the download button. I like that one.
See it in action
Studying 御来光 (goraikō, the sunrise seen from a mountaintop) with the mb theme and Maneki-Neko keeping watch.
Features
Auto Kana
Type romaji and it turns into kana as you type. taberu → たべる
Pinyin Tone Marks
Type numbered pinyin and get proper tone marks. ni3hao3 → nǐhǎo
Stroke Order Decks
Draw kanji, kana or hanzi with your mouse. Every stroke is checked for order, direction and shape. Trace over a faint guide, or draw from memory from a reading like げんき or a Kanji Kentei hint like バ薇.
Image Decks
A picture is the question and you type its word or reading. Photos are shrunk and compressed for you, and the whole deck saves as one small .zip you can send to a friend.
Missed Cards Return
Get one wrong and it shows up again later in the deck, until you get it right.
Ten Study Mascots
Pick a study buddy from Japanese folklore or Chinese mythology, from Shiba Inu to Sun Wukong.
Make It Yours
Bright and Dark mode, custom fonts and colors, and image themes you can make yourself.
CSV Manager
Make and edit your own typing, stroke order and image decks, with a rapid-entry mode for typing a whole list from a textbook.
Try it right here a taste of what typing feels like
Try drawing it stroke order, checked as you draw
Pick a kanji and draw it stroke by stroke in the square, starting where your brush would touch down. Each stroke is checked for order, direction and shape, just like in Keisetsu's stroke order decks. Miss the same stroke twice and it lights up in amber.
What's in a name?
蛍雪 (keisetsu) means "fireflies and snow." It comes from the old saying 蛍雪の功, about two poor students in ancient China. One studied by the light of fireflies he'd caught. The other studied by moonlight reflected off the snow.
It's a saying about hard work paying off (which is a little ironic because I used gAI to create this, but the theme was all me though ^^), and it's why there are fireflies and snow drifting behind this page.
Getting started on Windows
- Head to the Releases page and download Keisetsu-Windows.zip.
- Unzip it anywhere, like your Desktop or Documents.
- Open the Keisetsu folder and double-click Keisetsu.exe.
- Click Import CSV and pick "Select this deck to test the program!" for a guided first card. Then open the CSV Manager and click New to build your own deck: Typing, Stroke order or Image.
"Windows protected your PC"? That shows up because the program isn't code-signed (signing costs money). Click More info, then Run anyway.
Linux or macOS? Keisetsu runs on Python 3 with Tkinter. The setup steps are on the GitHub page.
Ready to hit the books?
It's free and open source (MIT), and Maneki-Neko is already waving at you.
