Blog
September 10, 2024
Chinese Words Dictionary
Dictionaries are some of the most useful tools in your arsenal as a learner of any language, serving as comprehensive databases of not just a word and its definition, but often much more information from grammar to usage to example sentences. Even if you merely plan to dabble in a language, dictionaries can be essential because translators ultimately need to guess the context and are prone to error.
Let's explore what makes a good Chinese dictionary and some of the best offerings for English speakers.
Dictionary Overview
September 2, 2024
Chinese Words for "Hello"
Greetings come in many different flavors, but none is more important than the standard acknowledgement greeting of "hello." Even if you know no other Chinese words, a simple greeting in one's native tongue can go a long way towards improving an interaction or brightening someone's day.
In this blog, let's examine some of the most basic and common ways to bid someone a simple hello and pick up some key tips along the way!
Overview
September 1, 2024
🍎 iOS App Release v1.7.3
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Overall app performance improvement
- Faster startup time
August 27, 2024
Extension Release v1.16.1
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Popup dict: lock scroll when reaching end of results
- Dictionary: words are no longer auto-deconjugated when sent to the Card Creator
- (Creator click-to-search no longer auto-deconjugates either)
- 👉 Fix: "enter" key issue in YouTube search bar
- Fix: "X cards created today" notification has been restored
- Fix: Migaku App window loading bug
- Fix: if one-click card creation errors, Migaku App window will be shown
August 26, 2024
Chinese Words for "Good Morning"
Whether you're traveling abroad, want to make an impression on a Chinese speaker, or simply want to impress your friends, we've got you covered with this detailed breakdown of the main ways to say good morning in Mandarin Chinese. We'll provide you with everything you need to know.
Overview
August 23, 2024
Extension Release v1.16.0
- 🔥 YouTube text parsing stability
- Fixed inaccurate/duplicated video title issue
- Only video title, description, and comments are now parsed
🆕 Translation toolbar
- The Toolbar now has a translation mode, which you can toggle enable with a new button
- Translate between your native language and the language you are studying
- Respects the "translation output language" found in Card Creator settings
- Simply type into either input to translate into the other language
- Send popup dictionary source/translation text to the Toolbar, for editing and experimentation
- 🔥 We also added a Translation tab to the popup dictionary, for one-click sentence translation
🔧 One-click card creation refinement
- "One click-card creation" is no longer an opt-in setting
- Instead, both manual and "one-click" card creation buttons will always be available
- Manual card creation: You're taken to the Card Creator so you can curate/edit things exactly how you like them
- ⚡ "One-click": Cards are created automatically and will skip the Card Creator
- Hotkeys also reflect this change:
- Use
E
whenever you want to create cards manually - Use
Q
whenever for "one-click" card creation
- Use
- FYI the behavior of the
E
hotkey has changed a little, as this has been a source of confusion- Both hotkeys now send distinct card payloads to the Card Creator (instead of combining)
- Now it is possible to "queue" up manual cards from text websites
- To "combine" words into 2T+ cards, open up words main dictionary and using the "Add+" buttons
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- 🔥 Settings: choose which dictionary tab to open by default: e.g. audio, images, translation, etc.
- Dashboard tweaks; added course/guides links, and a quick way to add Known Words
- Card Creator: if there is an error during generation, automatic card creation is cancelled
👨💻 Dev update
YouTube is one of our most used sites, and now runs much more smoothly. We've also added some powerful new translation features: check out the new "Toolbar Translator", and the "Translate" tab in the popup dictionary. You can also configure which dictionary tab is open-by-default in Settings, which pairs nicely with these features! 💪
August 23, 2024
🍎 iOS Release v1.7.2
👋 We are excited to release the "install from server/file" feature set to mobile users!
📚 Install dictionaries and frequency lists
- Install from our library, or upload your own files in supported formats
- Search all installed dictionaries, combining results into a single list with any duplicate results removed
- Change the order of dictionary/frequency list results via drag-and-drop in the Dictionary Settings page
- Adjust the dictionary media tab setting to configure default behavior for the first dictionary lookup
📝 Add Notes to Course Study Cards
- You can now add your own notes directly to course study cards.
🧠 Navigation Memory
- For select feature, when you close the app and reopen it, it will bring you back to where you left off
💨 Shortcuts
- Share your photo directly from the Photo app to Migaku OCR
- Share your text directly from any other app to Migaku Clipboard
🎉 Additional Notes
We care a lot about the app performance and usability. Therefore, we improved the overall performance of the app and squashed as many bugs as we can. Last but not least, with this update, app start-up time will be faster and more stable.
August 22, 2024
The Japanese Language: Katakana
Learning katakana, although less common than hiragana, is still essential for mastering Japanese. While katakana is not used as frequently as hiragana, it is still important enough that not being able to read it will significantly impact your understanding. Most quality textbooks and learning materials, including our Migaku Japanese Course, require knowledge of katakana.
If you haven't learned hiragana yet, we suggest you do so with our hiragana guide before moving on.
Just like with hiragana, if you follow our guide, you should be able to easily read katakana in a matter of days.
August 20, 2024
The Japanese Language: Hiragana
Learning hiragana is essential for mastering Japanese. It forms the foundation of Japanese pronunciation and is crucial for accessing Japanese resources, as most quality textbooks and learning materials, just like our Migaku Japanese Course, require knowledge of hiragana. Essentially, it's the first step in learning Japanese.
Many people spend too much time learning hiragana, even though this can be achieved in a week or less. Obviously, your pace will vary, but if you follow our guide below, you will be able to read hiragana in no time.
To achieve this, you should follow these steps:
August 20, 2024
Chinese Words for Greetings
Greetings ease communication between people. They can show respect, goodwill, or simply set a nice tone when interacting with someone. Greetings cover a broad category of language, ranging from informal greetings between friends to formal greetings in professional settings. When it comes to learning a language, greetings are some of the most fun things to learn early on because they allow you to interact with a native speaker and bring a smile to their face without having to know much else.
In this short blog, we cover some of the most common greetings in Mandarin Chinese, break them down by category, include audio for all terms, and examples where they can benefit. Let's explore the common greetings in this great language.
Overview
August 19, 2024
Extension Release v1.15.4
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- One-click card creation notifications:
- Clicking "show" will cancel auto-create, to ensure you have plenty of time to view/edit your card
- Clicking "cancel" will no longer focus the Migaku App window
- Hotkeys
B
(bookmark) andC
(copy) now recognise selected subtitles - Toolbar: during video playback, reveal Grabby Tabby by hovering near the top of your screen
- Fix: Card Creator submit button could get stuck when sending cards to Anki when it's not open
- Fix: sending a definition to the Card Creator could fail if the definition text was extremely long
August 14, 2024
The Japanese Counting System You've Never Heard About
If you have ever wondered why words like 八百屋 or 二十歳 are pronounced the way they are, we have the answer for you!
August 12, 2024
Extension Release v1.15.3
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Fixed issues when changing the Learning Status of some words
August 12, 2024
Extension Release v1.15.2
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Chinese: fixed dictionary tabs not loading for users learning Traditional Chinese
August 12, 2024
The Toolbar on Video Sites | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will talk about all functions of the Migaku toolbar on video sites.
August 11, 2024
Extension Release v1.15.1
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- 🔥 Parser: major upgrades to French and Spanish
- Popup Dict: tabs are now above definitions, for more convenient access
- Netflix: improvements to subtitle loading and navigation reliability
- Clipboard:
Q
andE
hotkeys now work as you'd expect - Clipboard: some fixes related to parsing and sending to Card Creator
- Dashboard: recommended sites are now enabled by default
- Dictionary: fixed comma-separated search result text affecting German and some other languages
- Japanese: half-width katakana is now automatically converted to full-width when sending to Card Creator
- French: wiktionary (French/English) now available for install from our library
- Format readability has been greatly improved
📰 Early Access update
Currently in testing in Early Access are a convenient set of translation features. This includes sentence translations in the popup dictionary, and the Translation Toolbar, which offers a convenient way to quickly translate any text back and forth with your native language. Check it out on the "#early-access" channel of our community Discord. This will be available to everyone in the near future after we've finished testing. Thanks as always for your support 🙇♂️
August 6, 2024
🍎 iOS App Release v1.6.0
📊 Study Stats
We're excited to introduce our first stats in Migaku Memory!
- Weekly activity: Get a quick glimpse of which days you studied in the week from the Migaku Memory home screen
- This is hidden by default. To display it on the home screen, go to Study Settings and toggle "Show weekly activity on home screen"
- Stats page: See daily activity in the past 12 months, daily average review, and longest study streak
✨ One-click Card Creation
- One-click card creation has now arrived in the app!
- Easily create cards with just one click
- To enable, go to the Card settings menu from the Card Creator or Edit Card view
🎚️ More card customization
Additional card type customization has been added to cater to various user requests:
- Customize which audio to autoplay on the back of cards
- Hide Target Word on the front of Sentence cards
- Add Target Word and/or Sentence on the front of Audio cards
August 6, 2024
🤖 Android App Release v1.33.4
📊 Study Stats
We're excited to introduce our first stats in Migaku Memory!
- Weekly activity: Get a quick glimpse of which days you studied in the week from the Migaku Memory home screen
- This is hidden by default. To display it on the home screen, go to Study Settings and toggle "Show weekly activity on home screen"
- Stats page: See daily activity in the past 12 months, daily average review, and longest study streak
✨ One-click Card Creation
- One-click card creation has now arrived in the app!
- Easily create cards with just one click
- To enable, go to the Card settings menu from the Card Creator or Edit Card view
🎚️ More card customization
Additional card type customization has been added to cater to various user requests:
- Customize which audio to autoplay on the back of cards
- Hide Target Word on the front of Sentence cards
- Add Target Word and/or Sentence on the front of Audio cards
August 5, 2024
Chinese Words for "I Love You"
Love is one of the most human things, transcending all geographic and cultural boundaries and espousing our love for others can be crucial to improving our relationships and lives. Communicating our love, whether romantic or in the sense of appreciation, is a healthy and enriching thing. Since it's so important, it's worthwhile to express such things in the language of the recipient of our love.
There are many ways to express your love for someone in Chinese, though this article will center on more romantic love expressions. Non-romantic expressions of love are often more subtle and harder to learn as a beginner. Here's a brief guide on how to express love in Chinese.
Overview
August 1, 2024
We spent 2 years to create the ultimate Chinese course
They are finally here. We are very proud to finally be able to share our Migaku Chinese Course with all of you.
July 28, 2024
Extension Release v1.15.0
🔢 Bulk card creation
- Create cards in bulk with either ⚡ "one-click" OR "manual" card creation
- One-click: automatically create multiple cards without leaving your content
- Manual: curate and finalize each card one-by-one
- Full support for card creation hotkeys
Q
(one-click) andE
(manual)
- Card Creator now has a "queue", and can handle multiple cards
- You can see/manage the queue, along with recently created cards
- The queue can contain BOTH "one-click" and "manual" cards
- One-click cards will jump the queue ahead of "manual" cards
- Removed the "create one card at a time" limit; create cards as fast as you like, on any site
🧮 Subtitle browser
- 🔥 Subtitle browser now supports bulk card creation
- 🔥 Added filters to the subtitle browser. View:
Recommended Sentences
- Sentences with
1 Unknown word
- Sentences with
2+ Unknown words
Bookmarked
(new!)
- Added the ability to bookmark subtitles
- You can then filter to view all
Bookmarked
subs in a video - This is a convenient way to bulk-create at the end of a video, just bookmark as you go
- Added hotkey
B
to bookmark the current subtitle
- You can then filter to view all
📽️ Video enhancements
- Ads are now detected on YouTube and Viki, handled gracefully
- Recording is now auto-paused/resumed if you leave a video tab while creating cards
- Added new skip mode "Jump", for instantly skipping long gaps between subtitles
- Auto-create card if "recording permission" prompt interrupted card creation intent
- Improved subtitle cleanup: remove lone music symbols, merge subs with duplicate text
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Chinese: definitions sent to the Card Creator now respect your character and reading preferences
👨💻 Dev update
Huge update! After a few weeks of testing in Early Access, we are excited to release bulk card creation, subtitle filters, and the Card Creator queue. This reinvention of bulk card creation enables powerful workflows that weren't possible before. For example, bookmark subtitles as you watch, then filter and bulk-create at the end of an episode. And now, thanks to the new Card Creator queue, you can create cards in bulk whilst still reviewing each of them manually to ensure each one is just how you like it. You can also create cards faster than ever on text websites, even if the Card Creator is busy in the background! Lots of new changes, we hope you like them. Please let us know if you have any issues, there's a lot of new logic!
July 25, 2024
Chinese Language Tones
When learning a Chinese language, tones are often one of the things that comes up as a particular pain point for learners. But, despair not. Tones are simply yet another feature of a language, like consonants and vowels. If you think of them as a super special or super difficult thing to overcome, then it's easy waste time psyching yourself out. Treat it as you would the spelling of a word: simply yet another thing you have to learn.
Without further ado, let's take a look at what tones are, the tone change rule exceptions, and how you should approach them in your Mandarin studies.
Overview
July 22, 2024
Extension Release v1.14.2
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Fix: Recommended Sentences calculation accuracy has been restored
- Fix: Chinese example sentence search in popup/main dictionary is now working
July 19, 2024
Extension Release v1.14.1
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Fix: some subtitle text could cause image/audio Card Creator upload errors
- Fix: Popup Dict selections were not always being sent to the Card Creator
- Fix: generating
Definitions
in the Card Creator is working again - Fix: parsing could get stuck on 99% some pages
- Fix: the final subtitle in some specific shows was not being displayed
- Fix: errors when installing default dictionary/frequency lists for some languages
📰 Early Access update
Subtitle filters and bookmarking have just landed into Early Access, check it out on our community Discord, in the "#early-access" channel.
July 15, 2024
Extension Release v1.14.0
⏭️ Video playback & skip modes
Two new modes have been added to Toolbar video settings
1️⃣ Playback modes
- Reading: pause video before each subtitle
- Recall: hide each subtitle until it's spoken, then pause
- Only show subtitles on pause
- Pause on Recommended Sentences
2️⃣ Skip modes: "2x" up to "8x"
- This will play video segments at a faster speed when there is no spoken dialogue
📽️ Video enhancements
- Ads are now detected on YouTube and Viki, handled gracefully
- Auto-create card if "recording permission" prompt interrupted card creation intent
- Improved subtitle cleanup: remove lone music symbols, merge subs with duplicate text
- Fix: Netflix episode selection menu no longer overlapped by subtitle browser/overlay
- Fix: only reset subtitle browser auto-scroll if video is playing
- Fix: subtitle wrap sometimes flickering when hovering over Recommended Sentences
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Popup Dict: checkbox selections now retained regardless of auto-prefill opt-outs
- Settings: Added support for more dictionary file install formats
- Mandarin: some minor improvements to parser dataset
- Card Creator: HDCP/DRM detection is now more sophisticated - less false-positives
- Dictionary:
Target Word
reading/pitch/etc. now accurately retained when sending to Card Creator - Chinese: fixed issues with changing Learning/Tracked status for some words
- English: IPA readings are now limited to only one reading
📰 Early Access update
Bulk card creation has just landed in Early Access! Check it out on our community Discord, in the "#early-access" channel.
July 11, 2024
Card creation from video content | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we will explain all the ways you can create cards from video content.
July 10, 2024
Chinese Words for "Thank you"
Expressing your gratitude is something that transcends linguistic boundaries. It can help improve your interactions among others, no matter how brief and seemingly inconsequential they may seem at the time. It's nice to acknowledge the work of others that's making the world a better place. While thanks can come in many forms, the words we use a simple but effective way to communicate our appreciation.
Even if you know no other Chinese words and just want to impress a friend, a simple thank you in their language can go a long way. We will give you some key phrases and explanation, along with audio, so that you can show your appreciation to speakers of Mandarin in no time!
Overview
July 9, 2024
Card creation from text content | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we will explain all the ways you can create cards from text content.
July 8, 2024
How to Write a Japanese Letter
Although in modern times we rarely have the opportunity to write letters, you might want to send a heartfelt letter to someone you know, or perhaps you simply enjoy the process of writing.
As with many aspects, writing a letter shows differences between languages. We will give you an example of a correctly written letter, and then explain all the parts, what they mean, and what they are used for. Once you know how to write a letter in Japanese, you can also apply some of this knowledge to writing emails, which is not too different.
Components of a Letter
July 4, 2024
Chinese Language Numbers 1-10
Learning the basic numbers is a foundational skill for any adult. Numbers show up in all aspects of life, so we become quite used to how they work in our native language. However, learning even just the basics in another language can offer quick benefits, whether it's giving one insight into another way of thinking, or allowing one to make sense of prices or labels when traveling.
Luckily, starting with the numbers in Chinese is especially useful and straightforward. Many of the characters are often simpler in form, or in other words, they have fewer strokes than many other characters in Chinese. They also only consist of one syllable, so they can serve as good practice with the tones and sounds of Mandarin Chinese. Let's get into this exciting new number system.
Overview
July 3, 2024
The Card Creator | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will explain everything you need to know about the card creator in the Migaku Browser Extension.
July 2, 2024
Portuguese Specific Features | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we talk about the Portuguese-specific display options provided by the Migaku Browser Extension.
July 2, 2024
Spanish Specific Features | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we talk about the Spanish-specific display options provided by the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 29, 2024
Japanese Specific Features | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we talk about the Japanese-specific display options provided by the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 29, 2024
Mandarin Specific Features | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we talk about the Mandarin-specific display options provided by the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 28, 2024
Supercharge Your Language Learning: Tracking Learned Words
Learning statuses can be a powerful tool in your toolbox, but how can you use them to their full potential? What can each learning status indicate to you while engaging with native media? How should you change your engagement depending on the learning status of a word? Today, we will answer these questions and more.
June 26, 2024
Extension Release v1.13.0
🆕 Introducing the Toolbar "Grabby Tabby"
We've updated the way opening the toolbar functions:
- Instead of hovering at the top of the screen, there is now a visible tab to click to open the Toolbar
- Click and drag to reposition the tab anywhere along the top of the page
- The grabby tabby is hidden when video is playing
- Pause video to reveal the it again
- Or, hover at the top of your screen while the video is playing (just like old times)
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Fix: undo-ing one-click card creation now restores data to Card Creator
- Fix: Chinese cards created from the subtitle browser no longer include duplicate
Target Words
📰 Early Access update
Video playback and skip modes have just hit Early Access! Check it out on community Discord, in the "#early-access" channel.
June 26, 2024
The Japanese Alphabets
Coming from a western language, one might be inclined to call the Japanese writing system(s) an alphabet, but that is not correct. In this article we will go over the three writing systems used in Japanese and clear up all the misconceptions.
These three writing systems are hiragana, katakana, and kanji. The first two have a lot more in common, and are collectively called kana. Each system serves a specific purpose and is used in different contexts.
Hiragana
June 24, 2024
Video Controls | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will go over the most important video controls the Migaku Browser Extension provides.
June 24, 2024
🍎 iOS App Release v1.5.0
✨ OCR
- Look up words and create cards from books, posters or signage outside!
- Take a photo or use a photo from your photo library
- Supports both horizontal and vertical text
- Includes improved popup dictionary bottom sheet behavior and resizing
Note: for iOS users: due to technical limitations, the OCR feature is only available on iOS 17 or above. If you're not seeing the option, please consider upgrading your OS if possible.
June 24, 2024
🤖 Android App Release v1.32.2
✨ OCR
- Look up words and create cards from books, posters or signage outside!
- Take a photo or use a photo from your photo library
- Supports both horizontal and vertical text
- Includes improved popup dictionary bottom sheet behavior and resizing
June 24, 2024
French Specific Features | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we talk about the French-specific display options provided by the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 24, 2024
German Specific Features | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video, we talk about the German-specific display options provided by the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 24, 2024
The Learning Statuses | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will explain to you how the learning statuses work in the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 24, 2024
The Toolbar on Text Sites | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will talk about all functions of the Migaku toolbar on text sites.
June 22, 2024
We spent 10,000 hours to make the perfect Japanese course
They are finally here. We are very proud to finally be able to share our Migaku Japanese Course with all of you.
June 18, 2024
The Clipboard | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will explain to you all the features of the Migaku Clipboard.
June 18, 2024
The Settings | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we explain everything you need to know about the settings page of the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 18, 2024
The Pop-up Dictionary | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will explain everything you need to know about the pop-up dictionary.
June 18, 2024
The Dictionary | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will take you through all you need to know about the dictionary in the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 18, 2024
The Dashboard | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will show you what the Dashboard is, and what features it currently provides.
June 18, 2024
Installation Guide | Migaku Browser Extension
In this video we will show you how to install the Migaku Browser Extension.
June 17, 2024
The Japanese Kanji for Love
Love is one of the fundamental things that humans strive for in life, and it is one of our most precious emotions. Even the Beatles knew that all you need is love. However, different cultures can express this same general concept in various ways, especially in language, and Japanese is no exception.
Whether you are trying to avoid embarrassing yourself when confessing to your sweetheart, or just looking for the right kanji for your next stylish tattoo, learning how Japanese expresses love is crucial. And as always, we've got you covered.
Japanese has a multitude of words that can express love and affection, with 好き, 恋 and 愛 being the most frequently used ones. But what are the differences between those three? Let's find out.
June 13, 2024
Extension Release v1.12.0
💬 Subtitle features
- 🔥 The Subtitle browser has landed!
- Toggle open/closed in the Toolbar, or with hotkey
G
- Resize width with edge click-and-drag
- Toggle open/closed in the Toolbar, or with hotkey
- 🔥 Click-and-drag on the subtitle overlay to vertically reposition
- 🔥 Increase/decrease subtitle size in Toolbar video settings
- Base subtitle font size is now responsive, based on browser width
- 🔥 Comprehension stats are now supported on video pages, based on the subtitle browser
- Merge multiple subtitles into one card
- Smart auto-scroll; supports temporary manual scrolling
- Changed secondary subtitle font
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Fix: video screenshot sometimes captured with incorrect dimensions
- Fix: subtitles now load more reliably when changing subtitles, and switching videos rapidly
- Fix: numerous tweaks and improvements to prev/next subtitle navigation
- Fix: more reliable pause-on-hover feature
- Fix: highlighting and copying subtitle text is now less "sticky", and comes with fewer newlines
- Fix:
Up Arrow
no longer adjusts YouTube volume if video is focused - Fix: YouTube bug where lower quality streams could make the video appear small in frame
- Fix: improved reliability of learning status changes within subtitles
- Fix: Chinese Known Word count-mode setting is now saved/stored reliably
- One-click card creation will now show in-page milestone notifications
- e.g. 🎉
You've created 5 cards today!
- e.g. 🎉
- Clipboard: increased bottom padding, so one-click notifications do not obscure text
🧑💻 Dev update
This is a big one! Over the past month we've been iterating with our Early Access users on a number of subtitle-related features, including the long-anticipated subtitle browser. Next up we will be adding more video features, such as playback and skip modes, subtitle customisation and filtering, and bulk card creation. Thank you everyone as always for your support 🙇♂️ ❤️
June 13, 2024
Top 12 Greetings in Japanese
Greetings are an important aspect of any language and are used to acknowledge someone's presence, initiate communication, or show respect and friendliness. They are a fundamental part of social interaction and can vary widely across different cultures and contexts. Japanese, in particular, has its own set of greetings that you should be familiar with for smooth communication.
Ohayōgozaimasu - おはようございます
Meaning: Good morning
Usage: From sunrise to noon
Kanji form: 御早う御座います
Note: Often shortened to おはよう in casual settings
June 11, 2024
Extension Release v1.11.1
📋 Clipboard enhancements
- Fix: Chinese character conversion now works
- Fix: improved sentence detection when sending to the Card Creator
- Fix: automatic "scroll-to-bottom" on paste no longer gets in the way of manual pasting
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Fix: Card Creator
Target Word
now parses reading/coloring correctly again - Fix: highlighting and copying subtitle text is now less "sticky", and comes with fewer newlines
- Parsing: numbers are no longer given learning statuses
- Menu: shortcut buttons now include all locations, including Dashboard
📰 Early Access update
Subtitle comprehension stats have just landed into Early Access, and now we are in our final phase of testing and tweaking the subtitle browser and its related features. Later this week, everyone can look forward to a big v1.12.0
release which will include the subtitle browser, the ability to resize and reposition the subtitle overlay, subtitle comprehension stats, and more.
June 5, 2024
I learned fluent Japanese by IGNORING the details
In this video, we will discuss why it is important, especially for beginners, to not get bogged down by details and instead focus more on getting a rough overview of the meaning of words and grammar. Once you are more advanced, you will get more value out of revisiting detailed explanations of grammar and the differences between similar grammar points and words.
June 4, 2024
Extension Release v1.11.0
📋 The Clipboard is here!
- Open the Clipboard tab via the extension Menu, or in the Migaku App window
- Toggle between edit/read mode, similar to the mobile Clipboard
- Clipboard contents persist even after the tab is closed
- Turn on "auto-paste" to synchronise with your system clipboard
- You can also configure text size, and display settings
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Fix: cursor vanishing sometimes when watching videos and switching tabs
- Fix: some valid subtitle options were not available for selection
- Fix:
Target Word
reading now included when sending to Card Creator - Fix: changing language from the Menu could cause loading glitches/loops
- Card Creator: you can now opt in or out of Word Audio TTS
📰 Early Access update
Thanks to all our Early Access users for helping test and refine the Clipboard over the past month! Up next: the subtitle browser, the ability to resize/reposition subtitles, and more! These features are already in Early Access and will be ready for everyone very soon! 😸
May 25, 2024
Extension Release v1.10.6
💬 Subtitle enhancements
- Fix: Disney+ sometimes loaded subtitles incorrectly when going to the next episode
- Fix: YouTube video ratio no longer broken on smaller viewports
- Fix: some valid subtitle options were not available for selection
- Fix: subtitles loading forever on Netflix sometimes
- Fix: subtitles now decode/replace HTML entities like
,"
, etc. - Fix: video/audio capture would stop working after changing known/tracking status
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- You can now use the popup dictionary on Migaku Memory web
- (
Target Word
andSentence
lookups when the Migaku App window is open)
- (
- Fix: Main Dictionary search could sometimes get stuck
May 9, 2024
Extension Release v1.10.5
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- 🇭🇰 Cantonese parser improvements
- Card Creator: auto-bolding now updates when
Target Word
field changed- 📹 (See the attached video for a little demo)
- Fix: Disney+ subtitles not loading correctly after changing episode
📰 Early Access update
The subtitle browser is coming along nicely, with a few iterations since its release last week. Check it out in the "#early-access" channel on our community Discord if you're curious about the next major feature to make its way to all all users 🙂
May 6, 2024
Extension Release v1.10.4
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- ❗ Video player controls are now clickable again
- Numerous tweaks to make
Target Word
auto-bolding behaviour more reliable Alt+D
dictionary lookup shortcut no longer clashes with WASD hotkeys
May 5, 2024
Extension Release v1.10.3
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- 🔥 Card Creator: "Target Words" are now bolded automatically in the "Sentence" field
- ❗ Disney+ has been patched to accommodate their recent changes
- Toolbar: added a new configuration for pitch/tone/gender coloring, to display "On hover"
- Hotkey: you can now use to "Alt+D" to open/search for a word in the Main Dictionary window
- Japanese: half-width katakana is now converted, for consistent parsing/lookups
- Fix: some notifications were not properly anchored to the bottom of the screen
- Fix: resolved various alignment issues in vertical parsed text
📰 Early Access update
The subtitle browser has just been released into Early Access! Along with other enhancements like click-and-drag to reposition, and increase/decrease subtitle font size. Check out the update in the "#early-access" channel on our community Discord, which includes an update from the dev team.
April 26, 2024
Extension Release v1.10.2
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- 🔥 Card Creator: you can now paste and drag-and-drop audio and images
- Fix: hotkeys that toggle subtitle visibility are now more reliable
- Some preventative measures making sync issues less likely
April 23, 2024
Extension Release v1.10.1
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Fix: Translation field generation errors
- Fix: "enable page" hotkey no longer conflicts with Chrome menu hotkey (changed to Alt+Shift+E)
- Card Creator: it's now possible to opt-out of Definitions auto pre-fill
- Card Creator: conflicts now always combine (removed "replace/combine" pop-up)
- Subtitles: minor tweaks to font weight/kerning for target language subs
📰 Early Access update
The Clipboard has just hit Early Access! This will be released to everyone in a few weeks once we've added a few more features (like comprehension stats) and everything's looking stable. Check it out in the "#early-access" channel on our community Discord!
March 22, 2024
Extension Release v1.10.0
🖱️ One-click card creation
- 🔥 You can now opt-in to automatic, one-click card creation in the Card Creator settings
- This will allow you to create cards entirely in-page, without needing to submit the Card Creator
- 🔥 New hotkey paradigm:
Q
for one-click, andE
to send to Card Creator. Try it out when:- Hovering over a specific word in a sentence/subtitle
- Selecting a specific portion of text, or items in your pop-up dictionary
- Hovering over an image when reading news/blogs (E only)
- Combo move: Select text and hover over an image
- When one-click is enabled, there are now two "create" buttons: one-click, and manual
📺 Video enhancements
- Netflix: fixed subtitles sometimes not appearing when going to next episode
- Fixed an issue where subtitle navigation wouldn't seek the video accordingly
- Rapid backwards subtitle navigation is now more reliable
- Added "Lookup on hover" option for subtitles in Toolbar video options, default true
- Detect, fix, and merge "halved" subtitles, when they appear with the same timestamp
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Added advanced setting in the Card Creator for opt-in ChatGPT translations
- It is now possible to "cancel" and "undo" card creation
- It is now possible to clear the Card Creator while generating/uploading
- Fixed a number of issues where hotkeys weren't behaving as expected
- First-time install of the extension now opens the "Starter Guide" page on our website
- Toolbar hotkey info popup now fits on smaller screens
🧑💻 Dev update
Big update! One-click card creation is now stable enough for everyone to enjoy. We're really excited about this featureset, so we'll be keen to hear what you think! Let us know if you come across any issues ✌️
March 17, 2024
Extension Release v1.9.4
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- 🔥 All Card Creator audio is now normalised to a consistent volume
- ❗ Disney+ has been fixed: added support for their recent stealth overhaul
- Added advanced setting in the Card Creator for opt-in ChatGPT translations
- Added first-time install instructions for pinning the extension button
- Fixed spacebar behaviour on Animelon
🧑💻 Dev update
Disney+ have stealthily rolled out some complex/big changes recently, which the team have been grinding on to get things operational again. We're happy to report that functionality has now been restored. One-click card creation is now feeling pretty stable/refined in Early Access, so you can expect this featureset will be released to everyone next week.
March 7, 2024
How to ACTUALLY learn Japanese with flashcards - Learn 2x faster!
Your background with traditional education is slowing your progress. In this video we tell you how to learn Japanese from flashcards more effectively. Whether you're using Migaku Memory, Anki, Memrise, or another spaced repetition app (SRS), the learning method explained here will help you.
March 2, 2024
Extension Release v1.9.3
✨ New Feature
- You can now right-click on an image, or selected text, and "Send to Card Creator"
📺 Video stability tweaks
- Fixed issue affecting some users from being able to exit fullscreen
- Chinese: character conversion preference now applied in more places, e.g. subtitle copy-to-clipboard
- Cantonese: available subtitle selection is now wider, includes all Chinese subtitles
📰 Early Access update
One-click card creation is being steadily refined, and will soon be available to everyone. Check out the recent updates on our community Discord, in the "#early-access" announcements channel, if you're curious! Meanwhile, the subtitle browser is in active development and is on track for an Early Access release in the near future. ✌️
February 28, 2024
The best way to learn Japanese vocabulary
How many words do you need to know to reach fluency? How can you go about it the right way using the frequency approach, and how can you do this with Migaku? These and many more questions are what we will answer in this video.
February 24, 2024
Watching and Reading Japanese with Migaku - Full Tutorial
This video is a comprehensive run-through of the most important features you need to know if you want to learn Japanese with Migaku.
February 22, 2024
Extension Release v1.9.2
📺 Video stability tweaks
- ❗ Fixed an issue where Disney+ was not being detected as a "video site" with some interface languages
- Detect and correct jumbled subtitle data, e.g. where two subtitle halves appear in reverse order
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- 🔥 The popup dictionary now includes a tab for convenient lookups in popular online dictionaries
- Improved hotkey compatibility with international keyboards (such as Korean, Japanese, etc.)
- Japanese:
Sentence
generation reliability has been improved
February 19, 2024
Extension Release v1.9.1
📺 Video stability tweaks
- Added
C
hotkey to copy current subtitle text to clipboard - Fixed issue causing Rakuten Viki to be broken for a number of users
- Fixed "you have a card for this word" checkmarks not appearing in subtitles, after card creation
- Fixed an issue where some media recording would fail for some specific subtitle text
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- "Enabled domains" are now saved on per-language basis
- Generating a translation no longer errors if the input/output languages match, e.g. English -> English
- Generating definitions no longer errors when there are no results in dictionary
- English: fixed an issue where some dictionary results were not being properly combined
- Korean: fixed issue where some
Target Words
weren't generatingWord Audio
as expected - European langs:
Sentence
field generation results are now more reliable - European langs: comma-separated
Target Words
now properly affect related generation
February 14, 2024
Watching and Reading Mandarin with Migaku - Full Tutorial
This video is a comprehensive run-through of the most important features you need to know if you want to learn Mandarin with Migaku.
February 9, 2024
We're back on YouTube Q&A livestream!
In this livestream, Lucas and Stevi talk about what happened during our absence from YouTube, what our current and future plans are for Migaku, and much more.
February 9, 2024
Extension Release v1.9.0
🪄 Card Creator generate & auto pre-fill
- 🔥 Card fields are now auto-generated when creating cards
- Customize the fields you want automatically added to your cards, in Card Creator settings
- Opt in/out to any field. Includes advanced settings
- Added "Generate" buttons to every field in the Card Creator
- 🔥 You can now specify the GPT/DeepL output language in Card Creator settings
- Affects: dictionary GPT explanations, and generated Translation/Notes values
📺 Video stability tweaks
- Added "Pause on hover" and "Auto-resume" options to Toolbar video options
- Added hotkey to toggle secondary subtitle visibility
Shift + (Up or W)
- Improve secondary subtitle accuracy when creating cards (for the
Translation
field) - Fixed the "If there are unknown words" secondary subtitle display mode
- Fixed blank video recording detection feature
- Fixed video getting stuck when recording (especially if recording failed for any reason)
- Fixed target subtitles disappearing when secondary subtitles set to 'None'
- Fixed issue on Disney+ where subtitles sometimes didn't load
- Fixed issue on Viki where video features sometimes wouldn't load at all
- Fixed issue on YouTube where subtitle overlay could sometimes be off-screen
- General improvements to all video sites for loading stability (still some work to do here)
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Fixed some stability issues with Card Creator syntax inputs
February 5, 2024
Extension Release v1.8.4
📺 Video stability tweaks
- YouTube: video is no longer cropped/zoomed on some screen dimensions
- YouTube: nicer compatibility with Migaku hotkeys (1234/UTKL)
- It is now possible to highlight target language subtitles (for copy/paste)
- Selected images in the popup dictionary are now included when creating cards from subtitles
- When "blank recording" is detected, a notice now appears explaining how to fix it (disable hardware acceleration)
- Added a notification if your subtitles are hidden at the start of your video session (for clarity)
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Fixed an issue where text inputs were losing initial focus when page first loads
- Migaku hotkeys no longer interfere with typing on some websites
- Fixed an issue where Card Creator fields were frozen/blank after card creation
- You can now delete your Known Words in Settings
January 30, 2024
Migaku is Back - Big Updates!
🌟 We're Back on YouTube! 🌟 After a two-year hiatus, the Migaku team is excited to return and share some major updates on our projects. 🚀
January 26, 2024
Extension Release v1.8.3
📺 Video stability tweaks
- YouTube click-to-lookup is now much more reliable
- Page no longer gets "stuck" if video recording failed
- Subtitles now load more reliably on slower connections
- Fixed some scenarios when video sites could "load forever"
- It is now clearer when no subtitles are available in the target language
- Secondary subtitles now appear below target subtitles, instead of above
- Secondary subtitles are now more accurate (e.g. when navigating, and with "When unknown" option)
- Video will now stay paused after mousing-away from subtitle overlay (rather than auto-resume)
🧑🔧 Other enhancements
- Mandarin zhuyin readings now properly appear in the dictionary, and on subtitles
- Added hover-labels to the Toolbar buttons
January 19, 2024
🤖 Android App Release v1.12.0
📋 Clipboard
Introducing the Clipboard, mirroring the capabilities of our Chrome extension. Easily Copy and paste text into our Clipboard to read, look up words, and create cards. Easily edit Clipboard contents with the new paste button. Switch between 'read' and 'edit' modes to either view parsed content or modify the text. Plus, your text is automatically persisted across sessions.
🔍 Popup dictionary in Migaku Memory
Tap the target word + or sentence on the back of the card and look up word definitions while studying. The ability to look up words while you are editing your card is coming soon ✨
📝 Create cards from the app
Manually create new cards on-the-go right from the mobile app ⌨️. This first version is a simple version as you will need to copy and paste your own content into the fields, however, this feature will expand further in the near future.
🤖 Google TTS and DeepL in Card Creator
When manually creating cards, you can auto-generate sentence audio (Google TTS) and sentence translations text (DeepL) for target sentences! This will be available soon when editing cards.
🛜 Offline feature on/off toggle
You can now choose to enable/disable media download. When enabled, images and audio will store locally onto your device for a seamless offline study experience. For those concerned about disk space, you can disable this and to reclaim your storage back.
🔧 Numerous Minor Tweaks and Improvements
We've made several small adjustments and fixes to enhance your app experience. Exciting new updates are on the horizon, so stay tuned!
January 19, 2024
Extension Release v1.8.2
🧑🔧 Enhancements
- Dictionary no longer hides some results (due to de-duplication false positives)
- Toggle subtitle visibility with the up arrow key (mirrors the "W" hotkey)
- Hover over "Create card" button in the Card Creator to see how many cards you've created today
- Japanese learners can now search with romaji in the main dictionary
- German learners now have content recommendations on the Dashboard
- ℹ️ We are now using GPT-4 Turbo under the hood, so you might notice GPT response quality improvements
December 22, 2023
Extension release v1.8.0
🎁 Happy Holidays from Migaku
Big update! We're excited to announce that basic video support is now available for everyone. Things are at a point where we consider them to be stable enough for all users to enjoy and find useful.
🎬 Video support (open beta)
- Lookup and create cards from Netflix, Disney+, Viki, and Animelon
- YouTube also has experimental support 🧑🔬
- Video support is not yet a perfect, stable experience. But most issues you may encounter can be fixed by a page refresh 🙂
- Early next year we will spend a lot of time fine-tuning this key part of our software, and making it awesome 🧑🔧
✨ Send cards to Anki
- Grab the latest Migaku Anki Add-on from Ankiweb, or update if you have it already
- In Card Creator settings, you can now choose between
Migaku Memory
&Anki
- In Anki, you can select the destination
Deck
andNote Type
via the Migaku toolbar- This includes the ability to map each field to any custom Note Type you like 🙂
😻 Other enhancements
- GPT explanations have been added to the popup/main dictionaries, with inbuilt prompt "explain word X in sentence Y" 🤖💬
- Quickly and conveniently add these explanations to the "Notes" field in the Card
- The Migaku App now has a Dashboard! 🧑🏫
- Basic content recommendations are available for Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin (simplified and traditional)
- More language recommendations coming next year, along with other cool stuff!
- The Dictionary now has a clickable search history
- Fixed slow/stuck parsing that affected some languages more than others (like Korean)
- Dozens of other enhancements and fixes
Have a wonderful end of year, and good luck with your language studies!
❤️ From the team at Migaku
December 22, 2023
🍎 iOS App Release v1.2.27
⏫ Popup Dictionary enhancement
Dictionary is now enriched with media tabs. Use the media tabs to send your favorite audio, images, and example sentences directly to the Card Creator.
🆕 Clipboard
With the Clipboard, you can parse and interact with text in a way similar to the Chrome extension. Edit the Clipboard content with just one touch using the paste and clear buttons. Toggle between 'read' and 'edit' mode to see your parsed content, or adjust the source text. Content will also be persisted between sessions on a per language basis. Your known word count at the top of the page will accurately reflect any learning status adjustments you make in the Clipboard.
🚀 Improved parser performance
We've fine-tuned the parsers to use fewer resources and work even faster than before.
🔩 And maaaaany more small fixes and enhancements. Stay tuned for much more in the weeks and months to come!
November 20, 2023
🍎 iOS App Release v1.11.1
🆕 Popup Dictionary
Tap on any word to quickly get its definition. This works on the back side of study cards, both sides of collection cards, as well as the card creator. It's as simple as that! Moreover, you can easily send your word and its definitions to the card creator by tapping the orange button.
🆕 Card Creation feature
Manually create new cards on-the-go right from the mobile app. You can also generate sentence audio (Google TTS) and translation text (DeepL) for the target sentences as well.
🆕 Offline feature on/off toggle
You can now choose to disable/enable media download. When enabled, images and audio will be stored locally on your device for a seamless offline study experience. For those concerned about disk space, you can disable this and reclaim your storage back. You'll be able to see how much MB these files are once they are fully downloaded.
Good to know: media download is ON by default if you are updating the app; it will be OFF however for new app installs/logins.
💪🏻 Better parsers
We've fine-tuned the parsers to use fewer resources and work even faster than before.