iPhone tool Japanese Flash opens up ‘social learning’

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Japanese Flash, the vocabulary study app for iPhone and iPad, on Friday introduced a social aspect to studying Japanese in its new version. Users can now “crowdsource” their own knowledge to help others in the community.

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The release is the first step by developers Long Weekend LLC to transform language learning by empowering students to develop study materials socially, directly on their mobile device.

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“Experienced Japanese learners can now tell us when an example sentence has a problem, or add a definition if a dictionary entry doesn’t include all usages. We’re now laying the groundwork to push the updated information back out to everyone, so everyone benefits – like a Wikipedia for learning Japanese,” explained Ross Sharrott, one of Long Weekend’s founders.

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“At some point, every learner has said a new vocabulary word to a Japanese person, and then be told, ‘we never use that word.’ Dictionaries don’t have this sort of detail, and so we intend to build it socially,” Sharrott added.

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Japanese Flash was released in April 2010 to favorable reviews in the Apple App Store, and has been featured on many Japan-focused blogs and websites. It helps learners remember Japanese vocabulary, contains a 149,000+ word dictionary, and has access to over 50,000 example sentences.

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The new version is available on the Apple App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japanese-flash/id367216357?mt=8

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