Jalup Mobile App (iOS & Android)
Jalup on your phone? Yes. Things are growing and changing fast. Prepare for the familiar, the unfamiliar, and the wild.
What is the Jalup App?
At its foundation, the Jalup app takes the textbook series I built through electronic flash cards (originally using the program Anki), and adds new ways to improve the learning process and make the experience more efficient and enjoyable.
These flash cards are separated into decks, and teach you everything from basic pronunciation, how to read and write the characters of Japanese, and goes all the way up to highly advanced vocabulary and grammar. They introduce you to increasingly complex Japanese, one step at a time, through 232 kana cards, 2300 kanji cards, 1000 J-E cards, and 5,500 J-J cards. There is one goal in mind: get you fluent.
I purposely designed everything in flash card format (rather than a traditional textbook), because it is easier to take in, easier to know how much to learn and how often to review, and it simplifies the mountain of information you need to absorb.
Over the years I’ve talked with thousands of Japanese learners and carefully observed every single problem they have had. In order to run free with my Japanese learning ideas, I decided to personally create an original mobile app that allows me to help you achieve greatness.
Advanced Spaced Repetition, Info+1 linking, Puzzle Solving.
You learn sentence cards; every card builds off of the last, introducing you to one new piece of connecting information. With that new piece you solve the sentence, without being just directly given a translation. Overcoming each challenge is rewarding. And you are able to click on the individual parts of a sentence to refresh what you’ve learned, and to help assist you finish each puzzle.
You review sentence cards; based on whether you understood or didn’t understand those reviewed cards, and a bunch of other growing factors that analyze your studying, those reviews are put on timed intervals. They will be ready for you sooner or later at the perfect time that your memory needs strengthening.
Shadow Immersion Player
You learn and review thousands of sentences. Immersion will become the other pillar of your success. The Jalup App gets you started with this immediately.
All the sentences you learn are added to an in-app immersion audio player, for you to listen on random or repeat whenever you want. That wasn’t enough though, and I wanted to harness the power of shadowing, using 2 features:
- Every sentence appears on the screen as it is played (this provides visual help for the early stages of shadowing)
- You can set a “shadow timer,” which adds a specific amount of time (between 1 to 5 seconds) in between each sentence you hear.
**The sentences appear on your car screen if you use Apple Car Play. Please do not look at sentences while driving.
Full, fun interactive tutorial system
Based on your Japanese level it guides you to what you should start with, how to start with it, what you are actually doing and why. It actually takes you through learning/reviewing the first several cards of each deck.
Later on, I am going to add directly to specific cards links to Jalup articles that relate to them or the learning process.
Completely Offline Access
Never worry again about a bad or no internet connection. More importantly, since it all runs offline, it is absurdly fast. No wait or load time; only study time. Every extra second counts when learning and reviewing Japanese. A bunch of 5 to 10 second delays can be frustrating when trying to master the art of the 2-minute session.
You do not need to create an account. Install and you are starting Japanese immediately with no pause. Also since its on your phone with no server access required, it’s all yours. You have backups that you can see.
**Backups are supposed to be taken automatically if you have your phone and data scheduled to be backed up automatically in the standard way. However, I don’t have control over/can’t guarantee the way your phone backs up your app data, so I highly recommend occasionally exporting your progress from in-app. It’s a one-second, one-click action that will store your progress as a small .csv file to Google Drive, DropBox, iCloud or whatever other cloud service you use.
Total Control over your learner data – Adjust how and when you study
When you use a spaced-repetition system for a long time, one of the most valuable assets that grows is your “progress.” Every card you learn creates a broad map of your entire learning experience. Jalup will hand over that map to you and let you change it at will.
All of your progress can easily be exported into a .csv file (to be viewed as a spreadsheet on Google Sheets, etc.) The power of this is two-fold:
- It lets you see at a glance your due dates, intervals, correct and incorrect, study time.
- It let’s you edit them. Freeze cards, set intervals, reset everything and more.
A more detailed guide is coming on the way of how to manually change things.
Other great features you need to try!
- Vacation Mode (Push all your reviews into the future by the length of your vacation)
- Easy & Intuitive Card Stats
- Jalup Situations & Stories
- Speaking Missions
- Goal Setting
- Review Monster
- Leveling and XP System
*Some features are currently only available for the iPhone version, but will be added as development continues on Android.
Who should use the Jalup App?
Regardless of your level, if you want to become awesome at Japanese, you are about to equip the Master Sword.
If you are a brand new user to Japanese Level Up, and have never heard of Anki, I strongly recommend starting with the Jalup mobile app.
You can ask questions to the creator of this (me – Adam)
I want it to be as clear and easy to use as possible. If you have a question on a word or sentence, ask me by email. I will answer.
The Ultimate Level Up
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Sounds like a dream! I wish I used iOS products. I will look forward to the Android release.
Best of luck with the testing and eventual release. It is definitely a BIG deal!
Thanks! I’ll see you when it eventually gets to android :)
Awesomeness has arrived. Highly excited for this! I have no doubt this will be deserving of full support, including getting the decks on the app also. Jalup forever.
ありがとうございます！
This is really cool! Definitely something I’ll invest in once I get the funds. Offline access is by far the coolest thing lol.
Yeah, that’s been one of the most highly requested features, and for good reason.
“As a token of appreciation to paid users, I am offering a one-time ability to fully transfer your progress from the web app directly into the mobile app.“
Is that offer available to Anki users?
If this is something at least a few people are interested in then yes. I will have to do a bunch of research on the way Anki sets up it’s card database, and figure out an easy way to extract the review data.
But with a bit of time, I can set it up to transfer into the new mobile app.
I use Anki and I would definitely be interested!
Thanks for all the work you do! It’s greatly appreciated!
I would also definitely be interested in this feature!
I’m loving this update – thank you Adam!
This post has actually been updated significantly from the post a few weeks ago (I didn’t want to re-write the entire thing since it contains similar info). Now in this post includes info for Anki users wanting to switch over. So this is available.
The app has so much going for it, especially offiline access as my internet isn’t the best and NEXT is frequently unusable. From a personal standpoint, I really don’t want to buy all the decks I already purchased again. However, I understand the reasoning behind the decision and you certainly deserve to be paid for the time and energy you have poured into these projects.
Have you determined what the price point is going to be for decks inside the app?
I haven’t 100% decided the pricing point just yet, but it will be close to the Anki package prices in the item store. This is to account for the additional stuff that will be added in-app and the rather large percentage the app store takes.
I look forward to seeing it, thank you for continuing to push these resources forward.
Great news! Can’t wait to try it :)
I hope you will enjoy it!
yay, though I’ll probably just continue with the web app…I really should get back to learning japanese as I have taken a pretty long break.
Yes, please get back to it. It’s waiting for you :)
Hi there, just started Jalup NEXT a few months ago (first time writing on the website) and I just wanted to say that I am very happy to hear the news. I would definitely be interested in moving over to the offline APP once it becomes available on Android since I spend a decent part of my day commuting with limited internet access.
I also just wanted to mention that I am a QA Tester/Analyst (IT and Games Dev) by trade so I’d be more than happy to pitch in when it comes to the testing side of things once the app becomes available on Android.
Good luck :D!
Hey Jonathan, welcome to Jalup!
And thanks for the offer. When Android comes around, I will definitely be happy to have you join as a tester.
Any eta on when you will add the rest of expert to the existing next? And will you ever add immersion too or are you just going to add that to the mobile app?
I probably won’t get to it until the start of next year but just wondering.
No ETA just yet on Jalup Expert. However, success with the mobile app will allow content to be grown on both.
So when I get to expert and Immersion, it will be added on both platforms.
When will this be available? I’ve been waiting for this for so long!
Probably not too much longer. I’m working on it heavily right now, and beta is moving forward nicely.
Any rough guess on how long it will take the more advanced material to arrive?
I don’t want to give an ETA that I can’t keep, so right now all I can say is that I’m focusing on improving the overall app experience.
Adam, when you say 5,500 J-J cards, does this mean:
Jalup Intermediate: 1,000 cards
Advanced: 1,000 cards
Expert: 2,000 cards
Total: 4,000 cards
Where do the remaining 1,500 cards come from? Jalup Situations, Themes, and Immersion? Or somewhere else?
I think I may have to change the name of Jalup Immersion as it tends to confuse many people. It is just a direct continuation off of Jalup Expert, that happens to use specific immersion resources that you can follow along with. Maybe call it “Jalup Super Expert” :)
Jalup Immersion is 1,500 cards that continue directly from Expert (technically the 6th stage hasn’t been released yet of 250 cards, but its rough draft has been ready for a while).
Adam, thanks for confirming that! So Jalup Immersion (aka Jalup Super Expert) is just the follow-up to Jalup Expert. Will Stage 6 be the last, to complete the final 1,500 cards after Jalup Expert?
I don’t really have a definite answer on whether Stage 6 will be the last. A lot will depend on the path Jalup goes as a whole. It might continue, it might turn into something else. I’m always working on something though.
Got it, Adam.
I won’t be getting this for right now (since I don’t have an Apple product), but still wanted to say thanks for all your dedication and hard work. You make learning Japanese way easier. :)
Thanks for the kind words Jim. I’ll keep working hard :)
So what will happen to Jalupnext? No more updates expected because of the mobile app? I hope not :(
That’s my worry too…
As mentioned in the post, Jalup NEXT will continue the way it has.
However since Jalup NEXT website is a fully functional, complete service, the focus now is on the mobile app.
Understood on that point. Don’t get me wrong I love next and am relieved that we can keep using it as is. It is fully functional. I wish it had more expert cards, immersion, etc. but I am not ready for them quite yet anyhow.
I think our point is that your focus is now on mobile at the expense of next. Instead of slowly adding features like vacation mode, expanding the explore tab, fixing bugs, adding more cards to buy, etc your time investment is on mobile instead.
I get the reasoning and am not upset. Just disappointed as I had hoped there would at least be minor updates to next over time instead of a 100% frozen platform.
Maybe there will be?!
If/when you create new decks, will you be able to make them available both in the mobile app and in Jalup Next? Hopefully yes. :)
“You can always buy an iPad in the meantime :)” But then I’d have to keep buying iPads in order to use it over the years. Got one as a gift, and by the time I was ready to use it, it was obsolete and couldn’t even get on the app store.
Hi Folks,
Apparently, I’m really late to this party. I let life get into the way of Japanese. First and foremost, どもありがとうございます。
This is awesome. I have a couple questions of folks that have used this longer than I.
1) To sync between iPad and iPhone, I assume we export from one and import to the other. It’s not a big deal, just curious.
2) More importantly, I’m currently using what came with the app, but I fully intend to get the max package. When I do, will it marry up with my progress, or will I have to start over?
Thanks!
Welcome. Yes back up on iPhone or iPad and import on the other. If you use iCloud it’s very seamless.
Yeah once you upgrade to Max you can resume right from where you left off.
Good luck have fun
Late is better than not showing up at all :)
laddr’s response above should answer your questions.
Sorry for not replying sooner. Thanks for the help!!
Downloaded and purchased maximum 1 January 2021. Thanks for the amazing product and hope to see it supported for a long time to come,
Awesome, enjoy it!
Indeed :)