pyHonGo is a pygame-based french-japanese vocabulary quizz. It features :
- Efficient learning with the flashcard method,
- Merging of the quizz choices by identical word class,
- Three independant saving profiles,
- Possibility to use the TV remote control over HDMI with the CEC protocol.
Simply copy all the contents to an individual folder, then to start the game simply run pyHonGo.py with a Python 2 interpreter:
python2 ./pyHonGo.py
The dependency pygame should be installed on the system. You can get some informations on the installation details on the official pygame website, or if you are running under a debian-based distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) you can simply type:
sudo apt-get install python-pygame
To use the HDMI CEC protocol to control the game with a TV remote control, the command-line tool cec-client should be installed. On Ubuntu you can type:
sudo apt-get install cec-utils
Note however that TV remote control is not mandatory and is deactivated by default.
To launch the game, go the folder where you installed the files and run:
python2 ./pyHonGo.py
In pyHonGo, you are asked to translate a french or japanese word into the other language. Each word of vocabulary is designed as a card and is stored along boxes. The five boxes are:
| Box 1 | Box 2 | Box 3 | Box 4 | Box 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
A card is picked from one of the box and asked to the player. If the answer is true, the card goes to the higher-level box, otherwise it goes to the lowel-level box.
The box where the card is taken from is the red box 3 times out of 4. When it is not chosen, it is the orange box 3 times out of 4. Again when it is not chosen, it is the yellow box 3 times out of 4, and so on. This is the principle of the flashcard method and implies that the least known cards are picked more often.
Initially, only the red box is unlocked, and the other ones are locked.
| Locked |
|---|
 |
If the box is locked, it cannot be picked and the lower-level box is chosen. The box is permanently unlocked when it contains 10 cards.
There are three profiles available:
| Cat | Bunny | Together |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
|
This allows you to be two players, who can play at the same time when you choose the together profile.
The game screen is the following :
The bottom-left zone of the screen represents the boxes, with the number indicating the current number of cards contained inside. The current box is highlighted. The top-left zone shows the current profile, and the right zone is the current question. You have to guess the right translation among 9 possibilities.
The controls are:
| Input | Result |
|---|---|
| 1-9 | Guess translation for current card |
| Arrows | Select one of the proposed translation |
| Enter | Choose the selected translation |
| P | Switch profile |
| Q | Exit the game |
The game is automatically saved after each answer.
There is no interface for changing the default settings. The only way to do it is to change the values of the constants in the first lines of the pyHonGo.py file :
REVERSE_NUMPAD = False
WITH_REMOTE = False
FORCE_RESOLUTION = True
FORCE_RESOLUTION_SIZE = (800,600)
DEBUG = False
MAX_JLPT_FOR_DATABASE = 4
The meaning of these constants are:
| Constant | Meaning |
|---|---|
| REVERSE_NUMPAD | Changes ordering of the answer. If False, "1" is the bottom-left answer (more convenient if the numeric keypad is used), while if set to True it is the top-left answer (more convenient if the TV remote control is used) |
| WITH_REMOTE | True or False. Enable or disable TV remote control |
| FORCE_RESOLUTION | If False, the game is fullscreen (more convenient on TV) otherwise (if True) the resolution is set to FORCE_RESOLUTION_SIZE |
| FORCE_RESOLUTION_SIZE | Set the game resolution to (size_x, size_y) if FORCE_RESOLUTION is set to True |
| DEBUG | Print information on the screen if set to True |
| MAX_JLPT_FOR_DATABASE | Maximum JLPT level (5 or 4), see below for details |
WITH_REMOTE constant must be set to True (see above).
The controls of the TV remove are:
| Input | Result |
|---|---|
| 1-9 | Guess translation for current card |
| Arrows | Select one of the proposed translation |
| OK | Choose the selected translation |
| Blue | Switch profile |
| Exit | Exit the game |
As this has only been tested on my personal TV remote control, the key bindings are likely to differ on other TVs / TV remotes. A possible workaround is to manually identify the value of your TV remote and update them in the source file. To identify the values, run:
python2 ./remotecontrol.py
Then press on the buttons of you TV remote control. The corresponding key values should appear on the screen. Then write the corresponding values to the constants defined at the beginning of the remotecontrol.py file. It may be necessary to delete remotecontrol.pyc, if it exists, for the changes to be taken into account.
JLPT stands for Japanese Language Proficiency Test. JLPT level 5 is the easiest level while JLPT level 1 is the hardest level. Only JLPT levels 5 and 4 are available in pyHonGo.
In japanese, it is often possible to tell the word class of a word even when you do not know its meaning:
- Verbs end with a '-u' hiragana (like る, す or ぬ). Examples: 食べる (eat), 泳ぐ (swim) or 行く (go).
- Some adjectives (i-adjectives) end with a い. Examples: 赤い (red), 重い (heavy) or 大きい (big)
Thus when you are asked a translation for a word, you can eliminate the possibilities that belong to a different word class, without even understanding the meaning of the words. This is not desirable so only words of the same class of the word to translate are proposed.
I hope you will enjoy this game. 日本語を頑張ってね !
The dictionnary is a personal derivative work of the two following projects:
- Obenkyo, which is an amazing android application. The author of Obenkyo kindly gives access to his data files (here) released under the Creative Commons license.
- JMDICT, a japanese/english dictionnary.
The backgound picture can be found at: https://alpha.wallhaven.cc/wallpaper/1151
The folder images are personal derivative work (realized with gimp) of the original folder image released under CC BY-NC 3.0 license by Jojo Mendoza: https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1215227/documents_folder_generic_mac_icon
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.