The Journey of Saigo's Japanese Learning Tool

I hope that future generations do not have to walk the same winding paths that those before them have. I also hope that juniors will not be like me: wasting a lot of time in confusion and growing in just a few moments.

2023-04-09#

I chose Japanese because I didn't want to study mathematics, and I wasted a lot of time during my four years in college walking many winding paths. If I had had systematic guides like CS Self-Learning Guide or Shanghai Jiao Tong University Survival Manual during my freshman year, my college experience would have been much more meaningful. Unfortunately, I did not discover such projects until I graduated.

Fortunately, I had anticipated this outcome, so I had been planning to create such a project. However, due to procrastination, I only officially put the Awesome Japanese Study Tools project on the agenda in my senior year. Initially, I only intended to create a survival manual for Japanese majors, similar to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Survival Manual, but since I decided not to pursue a master's degree in China and do not plan to study in a purely Japanese-related field, I will focus on maintaining and updating it for "self-learners of Japanese" as the main target group.

As graduation approached, looking back at the numerous so-called suggestions I made back then, only this statement stands out: I personally believe that for this project to be maintained effectively and sustainably, it should encourage more students to participate voluntarily, rather than relying on a few individuals or turning it into a task for a specific department: Compared to the computer industry, which has been greatly influenced by the open-source movement, other industries are still in the stage of "just wanting to work behind closed doors," but "if you don't contribute, I won't contribute, who will contribute? If you take, and I take, who do we take from?"

I hope this project can help more people and encourage more individuals to participate in "active sharing."

2022-09-08#

Below are some suggestions I made to the relevant person in charge when establishing a large group for undergraduates in the department, which can be seen as the starting point for the Awesome Japanese Study Tools project.

Hi! XX, I'm sorry to bother you with some personal thoughts. I mainly want to make a few immature suggestions regarding the newly established undergraduate communication group yesterday afternoon:

I strongly agree with establishing a department-level large group so that everyone can connect with more classmates in the Japanese department;
However, I personally believe that QQ groups are not suitable for meeting all needs, such as: they are not suitable for preserving valuable discussions (if deleted by mistake, they are gone), sharing some materials (strange review restrictions), inconvenient for categorization and organization, and inconvenient for classmates to participate (I believe that for this project to be maintained effectively and sustainably, it should encourage more students to participate voluntarily, rather than relying on a few individuals or turning it into a task for a specific department);
Therefore, I suggest organizing valuable content and materials discussed in the QQ group on other platforms.

Github#

First recommendation is GitHub, reasons: (Okay, I’m just sneaking in my own agenda 233)

Loose review, although it is in a semi-restricted state, most of the time access is still fine. If not, text can be directly synced to gitee (the only obvious difference between this platform and GitHub is that the total project size cannot exceed 1G);
No total size limit for uploaded files, individual files over 100M will receive a warning, but there are other ways to resolve this;
Other universities have similar projects: for example, Zhejiang University Course Strategy Sharing Plan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Survival Manual, which can serve as references for the structure and design of these projects;
Participating in the project is very "simple," allowing for relatively standardized collaboration among multiple people—participating students only need 3 steps: Fork a branch - modify/upload files - submit a PR; while managing students need to check the modified parts after the PR is submitted (GitHub will show what has been modified), and after confirming correctness, merge it, and other students can see it (rejected PRs will be saved in a special place and will not disappear directly, meaning that regardless of whether they are approved, other students can see them, which maximizes the transparency of the project);
The issue area can serve as a discussion area for discussing problems—unlike QQ messages, discussions in issues are recorded and archived, so some things do not need to be answered repeatedly.

Disadvantages#

Downloading files requires a VPN; otherwise, the speed can sometimes be very slow: it is recommended to save the collected textbook PDFs on Baidu Cloud and Lanzou Cloud (the latter allows downloading files in the browser without logging in and without speed limits, but can only upload single files not exceeding 100M and cannot share folders);
Most students are not familiar with this tool, so their desire to participate may be very low: well... it’s actually not that difficult, right? If someone really wants to participate in this project, they should be able to learn it (hopefully 233);
You need to download it locally to search: GitBook can provide online search services for free, but the setup and maintenance costs are relatively high and require certain technical skills (not complicated);
Students managing the project may be a bit tired because GitHub uses git technology, which may require proficiency in git commands to ensure that the content submitted by participating students does not get lost or conflict, but mastering the four commands of pull, push, merge, and diff should be enough: this work can be handed over to the technical department (sorry, I have never joined the technical department, so I’m not sure if the colleagues in the technical department are willing to take on such a burden), the project at Zhejiang University is maintained by the Zhejiang University technical club QSCTech.

Yuque#

Next is Yuque, reasons:

The multi-person collaboration mechanism is relatively complete (Yuque itself is an internal knowledge management tool of Alibaba), and after enabling the space function, different people can be given different permissions—if the division of labor is clear and the process is well-defined, the quality of the project will be somewhat guaranteed;
The free version allows uploading files up to 10G, and downloads are unlimited. Considering the nature of the project, it should be possible to apply for a free public welfare plan;
Easy to get started, the "team" and "knowledge base" functions of Yuque are very suitable for this project—there will be many documents and files, and simply categorizing them into folders might be quite messy. A specific introduction can be found in this article Which note-taking software is better? I, Feishu, or Yuque? - Konggu's answer - Zhihu;
Comes with search and comment features, and the webpage loading speed is also very fast.

Disadvantages#

The review mechanism is somewhat strange; considering the special nature of Japanese major materials, accounts might get banned 233, but one of my articles link linked to many sensitive foreign websites, and nothing happened after more than a year;
Even if you apply for the public welfare plan, there may be a limit on the number of participants: however, the minimum upper limit is 50 people, which should be sufficient 233.

Flowus#

Then I recommend Flowus, reasons:

It supports multi-person collaboration relatively well (I emphasize this repeatedly to prevent someone from maliciously deleting files and to ensure project transparency), and the loading speed is also very fast;
Downloads are unlimited; as long as there is one paid account, there are no restrictions on uploading files (60 per year, educational version certification Student/Teacher Personal Professional Edition Discount (flowus.cn));

Disadvantages#

It is impossible to get it for free; the free version can only invite 5 people to collaborate and upload files up to 2G;
Files can only be divided by folders, which may be somewhat chaotic (the "team" and "knowledge base" of Yuque can clearly categorize and organize files), but it should not have too much impact since there is a search function.

Other platforms not recommended#

Then there are some platforms that I personally do not recommend:

Tencent Docs:
- Advantages: Can be closely connected with QQ groups, very easy to get started;
- Disadvantages:
  - Cannot upload files (although links from Baidu Cloud and Lanzou Cloud can be used);
  - Categorizing and organizing a large number of documents can be quite troublesome;
  - Cross-document searching can be quite cumbersome;
  - Multi-person collaboration lacks review and proofreading steps (which can easily lead to disputes);
  - Loading speed can be affected by the length of the article.
Evernote: (Note: Since I haven't used Evernote for a long time, this evaluation may not be very accurate)
- Advantages: Many students and teachers are familiar with it, so the difficulty of getting started should not be high;
- Disadvantages: Considering the nature of the project, it may require using Evernote TEAMS instead of just Evernote, meaning everyone cannot get it for free.
Self-built forum:
- You don't have to start coding from scratch; just choose Discuz or Discourse and wrap it up (just kidding, there will probably be a series of problems to solve);
- The review will be somewhat lenient (but it cannot be a lawless land);
- The difficulty of setting up and maintaining is very high, with server costs at least 500+ per year;
- Mainly inspired by this article by a teacher from Beijing Language and Culture University Why do we insist on doing education;
- Just consider me extravagant.jpg.

Thank you very much for reading this long and somewhat tedious article.

I used to hold the idea of "those who plant trees for future generations to enjoy," and I have made several half-hearted attempts, so when I saw the department group this time, I couldn't help but ramble on for so long:

Sichuan International Studies University Japanese Department Survival Manual: Flowus platform, I only opened it a little bit and then gave up 233, but the structure of this project, which started strong but ended weakly, might have some reference value.

Resources related to Japanese learning: Yuque platform, my classmates might be familiar with it, but there is a Sichuan International Studies University Library Roaming Guide that I (should) not have shared yet—this introduces some interesting books in the library, which should be quite useful, but I also gave up later 233.

Awesome Japanese Study Tools: GitHub platform, I haven't given up yet, but there are already some things: mainly websites related to Japanese learning that I have collected, as well as a few small tools I wrote.

Finally, I am glad to see that the department is willing to create a project that is useful for everyone, and I hope this project can be like the Zhejiang University Course Strategy Sharing Plan:

I hope to turn these obscure, uncertain, and orally transmitted materials and experiences into publicly available, easily accessible, and collectively improved and accumulated shared materials.
I hope that future generations do not have to walk the same winding paths that those before them have. This is my belief and the reason for establishing this project.

I also hope that juniors will not be like me: wasting a lot of time in confusion and growing in just a few moments.