# The &kiten; Handbook

Jason
Katz-Brown

    jason@katzbrown.com

&FDLNotice;
2002-10-08
1.1

&kiten; is a Japanese reference/study tool for &kde;.

KDE
Japanese
Language

## Introduction

&kiten; is an application with multiple functions. Firstly, it is a convenient English to Japanese and Japanese to English dictionary; secondly, it is a Kanji dictionary, with multiple ways to look up specific characters; thirdly, it is a tool to help you learn Kanji.

Each of these modes is discussed in its own chapter.

Here's a screenshot of &kiten;
&kiten; screenshot

## Using the Dictionary

&kiten;'s most basic mode is as a dictionary for looking up both English and Japanese words. You can also add other dictionaries to &kiten;'s list.

&kiten; uses Jim Breen's Edict and Kanjidic as the default dictionaries. You can find more information at the Edict web site and the Kanjidic web site.

### Looking Up Words

To look up words in either language, type them in to the text-edit (much like &konqueror;'s location bar) and press either Enter or the Search button on the toolbar (again, much like &konqueror;). &kiten; will then look up the word.

You can enter Kanji, Kana and English and get back results from &kiten;. These results of your search will appear in the large results view which takes up the majority of the &kiten; window.

searching for an English translation
&kiten; search screenshot

#### Filtering

Often times you will want to filter rare words from your search. &kiten; will do this for you if toggle Settings Filter Rare.

Not all dictionary files support filtering rare entries - most dictionaries, excluding the two provided by default in &kiten; do not.

If you have not enabled filtering rare entries, common entries will be labeled Common in the result view.

### Advanced Searches

&kiten; supports more advanced searches than plain normal word searches.

#### Options for Matching English

Case sensitivity and whole-word matching can be enabled or disabled by choosing Settings Configure Kiten..., and then choosing the Searching item on the list on the left. The options can be enabled by checking the checkboxes and disabled by unchecking the checkboxes on this page. These options are global and affect all searches.

#### Beginning/Anywhere Searches

To search for the beginning of a word, instead of pressing the Search button on the toolbar or pressing Return on the text-entry in the toolbar, choose Search Search with Beginning of Word. Similarly, choose Search Search Anywhere to search for your text anywhere in a word. These search modes work for searches of both languages.

#### Searching in Results

&kiten; can also help you refine your searches by allowing you to search for new text in the results generated by a previous search. To do this, just choose Search Search in Results to perform your search.

### Verb Deinflection

&kiten; can deinflect verbs you search for. To enable this, make sure Settings Deinflect Verbs in Regular Search is checked. &kiten; will then deinflect Japanese you search for that starts with a Kanji and ends with a Kana.

The "Deinflect" option tries to unconjugate Japanese verbs. Deinflect only supports the common verb conjugations. If you search a lot of Japanese text you might consider using this option until you get used to handling Japanese verb forms.

## Looking Up Kanji

&kiten; has features that makes finding the one kanji you want easy from over 14,000 in the default dictionary.

Clicking on any Kanji in the main result view will show details on that particular Kanji. This can sometimes be the fastest way to look up a kanji.

Kanji searches are also filtered according to whether Settings Filter Rare is checked.

### Regular Searching

To enable regular searching on the Kanji dictionary, check Settings Kanjidic.

You can search with English and Japanese search strings the exact same way you can with the normal dictionary.

When searching for Kana readings in the Kanji dictionary, you will have to put a period before the okurigana (the kana that are not part of the Kanji).

### Radical Searching

You can use &kiten;'s radical search dialog to search for Kanji with a combination of radicals and a certain stroke count. Choose Search Radical Search... to open the radical search dialog.

To choose the radicals you want to be in your Kanji, select them from the middle listbox. To display possible radicals to select from this listbox with a certain number of strokes, choose this number of strokes from the spinbox just above the listbox. The radicals you choose will appear in the listbox to the right.

To choose how many strokes your Kanji should have, first check the Search by total strokes checkbox. (If you do not want to search by total strokes, uncheck this checkbox.) Then select the number of strokes from the spinbox on the left, under the checkbox. If you want the stroke count to be fuzzy by a certain number of strokes, select the margin of error from the spinbox to the right of the +/- label.

To perform the lookup, press the Look Up button.

### Grade Search

To get a list of all Kanji in a certain grade, enter that grade in the main text-entry in the toolbar. Then choose Search Grade to perform your search.

You can enter `Jouyou` and `Jinmeiyou` to get Kanji not in a regular grade but in those groups.

### Stroke Search

To get a list of all Kanji with a certain number of strokes, enter that number in the text-entry in the toolbar. Then choose Search Strokes to perform your search.

## Miscellaneous

This chapter describes miscellaneous features that can be used in both modes in &kiten;'s main window.

### The History

&kiten; keeps track of all of your queries in a list. You can see your last 20 results by looking under Go History. To go forward one in the history, choose Go Forward. To go forward one in the history, choose Go Back.

### Inputting Japanese

If you are unable to input Japanese normally into &kde; applications, you can use &kiten;'s Kana input system that is built in to the text-entry.

To start Kana input, press &Shift;Space. Now inputted syllables will be transformed into Hiragana. If you type a syllable in capital letters, it will be transformed into Katakana instead. Press &Shift;Space again to go back to regular input.

### Global Shortcuts

You can set global &kiten; shortcuts that work everywhere on your desktop. Go to the &kiten; configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings Configure Kiten.... Select the Global Keys section of the dialog. Here you can set the keys for a global word search and a global Kanji search like in other &kde; shortcut configuration panels.

### Printing

You can print the result view by choosing Go History. &kiten; will add an informative header to the printout.

### Fonts

You can choose the font that &kiten; uses in its result view and while printing. Go to the &kiten; configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings Configure Kiten.... Select the Font section of the dialog and select the font in the font-chooser.

&Qt; 3's new font-substitution system makes it so a Japanese font will always be substituted for Japanese characters, even if the font you specify doesn't include them. Thus, you can choose any font in the chooser and everything should still display fine.

## Learn Mode

&kiten;'s last mode is its Learn mode which is in a separate window. To open it, choose File Learn....

The Learn mode window in turn has two main tabs - one where where you maintain your Learning List, which is the list of Kanji that you are currently trying to learn. The other tab is the quiz area, where you are given a never-ending quiz on the Kanji on your Learning List.

If you want the Learn window to open every time you start up &kiten;, check the Start Learn on Kiten startup checkbox in the Learn section of the configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings Configure Kiten....

### The Learn Browser

The first tab of the Learn mode window, the List tab, provides an area to browse the Kanji in the 8 Kanji grades - 1st-6th grade, Others in Jouyou, and Jinmeiyou. Also in the top half of the tab is a listview which contains all of the Kanji on your Learning List.

To choose a grade to browse, choose it from the list in Go Grade. After selecting a grade, the first Kanji in that grade will be shown.

To go forward one Kanji in the current grade, choose Go Forward. To go back one Kanji, choose Go Back. To go to a random Kanji, choose Go Random.

If you click on a Kanji in the top view, the main &kiten; window will give detailed information on the Kanji you clicked.

### Populating the Learning List

There are three ways to add Kanji to the Learning List. To add the current Kanji (the one displayed in the view on the top) to your list, choose Edit Add. To add all Kanji in the current grade to your list, choose Edit Add All.

The current Kanji in the main &kiten; window can also be added by choosing (in the main &kiten; window) File Add Kanji to Learning List.

To delete a Kanji on your Learning List, select it and choose Edit Delete. You can also select a range of Kanji to delete by clicking in the list while holding down the &Shift; or &Ctrl; keys.

### Managing Learning List Files

Learning Lists can be saved to files for easy storage.

To open a list, choose File Open... and choose the existing list file in the file dialog.

To open a new list, choose File Open....

To save a list, choose File Save and choose the file to save your list to. To save the list under a different filename, choose File Save As....

When you close the Learn window the list you have opened will be re-opened the next time you start Learn mode.

To print out your Learning List, choose File Print.

### Quizzing

The second tab of the Learn window is the Quiz tab. If you have at least two Kanji on your Learning List, this tab will be enabled. Click on the tab to switch to it.

To answer the question, click on the pushbutton that contains the answer that matches with the Kanji on the centered pushbutton.

If you do not know the answer, you can cheat by choosing Go Cheat. This will set the correct pushbutton's focus.

To see full information about the Kanji, click on the button it is drawn on. This will be counted as a wrong answer, however, in the same way as if you cheated.

If you choose the wrong answer, or cheat, your score for that Kanji will be decremented. If you choose the correct answer, your score will be incremented by two. Your score on the Kanji are shown on the very right-hand column of your Learning List (on the List tab of the Learn window).

Your scores are stored globally for each Kanji - thus, the same Kanji in two different files will always have the same score.

### Configuring Quizzing

You can change the way quizzing works in the &kiten; configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings Configure Kiten.... Go to the Learn section, and look at the Quizzing groupbox. Here you can change whether the Kanji, meaning, or reading is given for the clue, and what is given for you to guess on.

## Credits and Licenses

&kiten; copyright 2001, 2002 Jason Katz-Brown

### Developers

- Jason Katz-Brown jason@katzbrown.com

- Neil Stevens neil@qualityassistant.com

- Jim Breen jwb@csse.monash.edu.au - Wrote xjdic, of which Kiten borrows code, and the xjdic index file generator. Also is main author of edict and kanjidic, which Kiten essentially require.

Documentation copyright 2002, Jason Katz-Brown

&underFDL; &underGPL;

&documentation.index;