On a hay boat — Grass that still lives.

This haiku explains that there is a rice-sprout boat 稲船 [ina-bu-ne] that has some grass, a chunk gathered from terrain, still alive and growing.

Immediately, the first line moves us to the full, cinematic imagery of a rice boat moving down a river slowly, gently, tenderly. And then, we zoom in and see the grass still growing.

Platform Evaluation

Kitsun .io spaced-repetition-system site, $96/year

This week we take a look at Kitsun.io, a place to have flash cards according to the SRS (spaced repetition system).

…and how it compares to Japanese Complete

Japanese Complete has a drill system designed to help you master the language and get a reflex for what looks right and makes sense.

You can complete your daily quiz and start a streak. It’s a really great way to stay current with the lessons and keep the language fresh on your mind. It’s a brief, 3-7 minute quiz depending on how far along the lessons one is.

Our quiz system for daily quizzes is actually designed with some pretty amazing stat tracking in the backend, so that when you get a question wrong, it’ll show up more frequently, this is very similar to SRS like they have at Kitsun for $96/year.

It might be worth it if you go with the annual or lifetime plan, which makes it more like $6/mo or less. But even then, I don’t spend enough time building decks to make this worthwhile for me or my circle of learners. SRS is a great way to learn, and there is a free alternative we will look at in a future edition of the Miso Fluent postcard called Anki, you probably have heard of it or use it already.

Thanks for joining us and remember for a limited time you can get a monthly subscription to Japanese Complete for just $29.00 and continue your path to Japanese language mastery. https://japanesecomplete.com/purchase

We took the guesswork out of how to proceed by building a curriculum that will teach you:

• 777 most frequent kanji

• Particles-first, get an eye for Japanese grammar

• Intuitive sentence structure via visual representations

• Book available

• Audio lessons available on web version, listen along and get proper pronunciation

• Visual sentence building tools that conform to Japanese grammar

• Social language learning and pitch analysis with our Crow Yata on the 5th tab (premium accounts).

• Exclusive tips, tricks, pro language learning and mastery knowledege not available elsewhere. Used by interpreters and translators to master a not-so-easy language, swiftly and with joy.