I am (slowly) learning Kanji as I continue my Japanese language learning journey. I thought why not combine programming and kanji – the result is not a very original program that I am converting to a Twitter Bot that at the time of this post. Kantanji = Programming x Learning Japanese. It shares kanji, their readings and stroke count – maybe I will improve it more as my programming skills improve. My lack of originality and love of portmanteaus continue with the naming of the program. “Kantanji” combines “Kantan”(簡単, かんたん, easy) and “ji” (from 漢字, かんじ, Chinese character) to make Kantanji.
Programming x Learning Japanese
My undergrad degree is in IT and before moving to Japan I spent many years working in IT. I have always found computers fascinating but one thing I didn’t enjoy was programming. I owe half of the passes in my programming courses to my friends/classmates (especially Richard, he never allows me to forget). I have always been capable with web-related programming languages, scripts, frameworks etc – part of that might be my need to see exactly what I am doing and changing as I do it. I eventually gravitated to IT training and education. Here I am now fascinated with the Python programming language (I could do an entire post about why I find it so much fun to dabble in).
Automate the Boring Stuff
One of the best resources I have found as I learn and practice Python is Automate the Boring Stuff with Python by Al Sweigart – a free resources to read under a Creative Commons license. It provides a beginner-friendly entry into python programming. If you are more skilled at this programming thing than me or learning as well check out the repository on Github and tweet me tips/questions @Jamaipanese or leave a comment below.