Declan’s Word of the Day Widgets are now available as a WordPress plugin. Languages available include Japanese, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), Korean, Russian, French, Arabic, German, Spanish, Italian and Indonesian.

Installation Instructions (for version 2.7 of WordPress)

(i.) Download the plugin you would like from the WP Plugin repository. Here are the  links to the download pages:

• Japanese
• Korean
• Chinese
• Chinese (Traditional)
• French
• German
• Italian
• Russian
• Spanish
• Arabic
• Indonesian

(ii.) Unzip the downloaded file and copy the PHP file (french-word-of-the-day.php for example) into you server’s  /wp-content/plugins/  folder. Or you can use Wordpress’s built-in plugin install feature.

(iii.) Then in your blogs administration pages go to the “Plugins” menu (as illustrated below)

and choose the “Installed” menu item (as illustrated below).

There you should see the Word of the Day plugin listed. Click the “Activate” link (as illustrated below) to activate the widget.

(iv.) Now you need to configure the widget so that it shows up in the Sidebar. To do that go to the “Appearance” menu (as illustrated below)

and select the “Widgets” item (as illustrated below)

You will then see that the “Word of the Day” widget then appears in the “Available Widgets” list. Click the “Add” link (as illustrated below)  to add the widget to the sidebar.

And don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” button (as illustrated below)  to finish the installation and configuration process.

You should then see a Word of the Day widget in your sidebar that looks something like the French example illustrated below.

Rooftops, Siena Italy - Winter 2008

Here are the gallery of icons we have so far:

A nice review of our Japanese language software on FileForum by reviewer xboco:

Outside of the fact that I’m currently a student taking Japanese (it just so happens that, because I transferred, I missed a year of Japanese and have to now take it over the summer), this program is simply fantastic. One of the most effective ways of learning - flash cards - were made better electronically. The program infuses the user with the native style as much as possible, and it incorporates a “clean” style. It has its primary buttons out in the open, and it does not throw random extra buttons into the layout (in other words, effectively minimalistic). As far as the price goes for this particular program, you’d have to have a serious reason to buy the program (or desire to keep a constant connection with Japanese).

We have rolled out our new Audio Word of the Day Facebook Widgets. These are the Facebook versions of our Google and Vista Sidebar gadgets which we have aggregated here.  Here is an screen shot of the Japanese Word of the Day Facebook app:

 The Facebook applications URL are:

Japanese: http://apps.facebook.com/japanese_word
Chinese: http://apps.facebook.com/chinese_word 
French: http://apps.facebook.com/french_word
German: http://apps.facebook.com/german_word
Spanish: http://apps.facebook.com/spanish 
Italian: http://apps.facebook.com/italian
Korean: http://apps.facebook.com/korean_word
Arabic: http://apps.facebook.com/arabic_word
Russian: http://apps.facebook.com/russian

Today we ask:  What are kanji radicals?

All kanji contain a classifying radical that is a component of the kanji. Often the radical imparts meaning to the kanji - for example the radical for hand 扌 appears in both of the kanji that combine to form the word “grasp” (把持)** and the individual kanji for “throw” (投). Recognizing a kanji’s radical often helps in memorising or deciphering the meaning of the kanji.

Most kanji dictionaries classify kanji according to their radicals. Therefore recognising the radial of an unknown kanji helps with looking it up in a dictionary.

Japanese kanji has 214 different radicals (the Bushu index).

Radicals can appear almost anywhere in a kanji - at the top, on the left, on the right, at the bottom and surrounding (enclosing). For instance:

	This is the for “harbour” with the radical for water highlighted in red.
	Here is the character for “country” with the radical for “mouth, opening, sounding” highlighted in red.
	Here is the character for “big” - it is classified as a radical itself.

 See here for the complete list of the 214 bushu radicals.

** - If you can not see the kanji characters in this post and you are a Windows user you may need to install the Japanese IME. Please see this page for detailed instructions.

Remembrance Day 2008 - Eglise Saint-Louis des Invalides, Paris

TheYeogiyo.com has a very nice implementation of our free Korean Audio Word of the Day widget/gadget. See the right-hand column of the site.  TheYeogiyo.com is a new community site targeted at expatriates living in Korea.

Avignon back streets - Autumn 2008