WaseiGo

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  Konsento. Sounds like consent. In Japanese: an electrical outlet.

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  Try it yourself. Choose an answer. See why it fits.

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  Hear the mix-up. Japanese dialogue. English translations.

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  See what you missed. Your answer. The correction. A short explanation.

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  Follow each voice. Replay any line, read furigana above the kanji, and tell speakers apart by name, color and placement.

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  Start with 50 free words. Unlock all 1,000. One-time purchase. No subscription.

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  App icon (1024 x 1024).

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  Native screen without a device frame: the konsento question on first launch.

Inspiration

I wanted to make wasei-eigo and other katakana words fun to learn through illustrations and conversations you can read and listen to. These words can confuse both people learning Japanese overseas and Japanese speakers learning English. The app also includes words borrowed from languages other than English.

Their origins and background stories can offer new discoveries even to people who know both Japanese and English well.

What it does

Read Kenta and Emma's conversation, replay a Japanese line, then test your understanding with Meaning, Reverse or Illustration quizzes. English translations and furigana reading aids accompany the Japanese. Japanese speakers can also use the translations to find the corresponding English expressions.

The collection has 1,000 words. Start with 50 free, without an account. A one-time purchase unlocks the full collection, with no subscription or ads.

How it was built

The mobile app uses React Native and Expo; the web app uses Next.js. Shared content connects each word to its scene, dialogue, explanation and quiz material. RevenueCat handles mobile purchases.

For the AI-generated artwork, a shared brief specifies soft watercolor, simple compositions and no lettering. Fish Audio provides synthesized Japanese speech; the English translations are text.

Challenges

English words embedded in Japanese dialogue sounded unnatural in the synthesized audio. That led to a change in the writing approach: keep the spoken exchange in Japanese, and show English meanings and spellings separately.

Japanese reading support, English translations and playback controls all need space on a small screen. Keeping them together without crowding the dialogue has taken repeated layout revisions.

What's next

Finish testing and release the mobile update, including mixed practice and spaced review. Continue refining the dialogue and explanations.

Built With

• clerk
• cloudflare-workers
• expo.io
• next.js
• react-native
• revenuecat
• typescript