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Glossary: what do the words in these articles mean?

Updated

Grouped by topic, a sentence or two each. Linked terms have a whole article.

Learning method ​

  • Immersion: acquiring a language by watching, listening to and reading large amounts of content you enjoy in that language, instead of memorising rules and doing exercises. The whole app is built for this; the theory is in the immersion guide.
  • Comprehensible input / i+1: content just a little above your current level — mostly understood, a few unknowns — is the most effective input. The yardstick for choosing material.
  • Active study / passive immersion: active = looking up, mining, reviewing; passive = anime playing in the background. You need both: the first small and precise, the second in volume.
  • SRS (spaced repetition): reviewing something right before you'd forget it; the software that does it is Anki.
  • Anki: free SRS software; every card Fushi makes goes there for review. What it is, which to install.
  • FSRS: Anki's newer scheduling algorithm, off by default — turn it on by hand.
  • Mining: turning unknown words from what you're watching into Anki cards. In Fushi it's the plus in the lookup popup.
  • Deck: a group of cards in Anki; note type / template: what fields a card has and how its two sides display. Fushi uses the Lapis template by default.
  • Kaishi 1.5k: a 1,500-word starter deck for absolute beginners; once you can read simple sentences, start immersing.

Japanese ​

  • Kana / gojūon: hiragana and katakana, 46 basic sounds each, the foundation of written Japanese and the one thing you must memorise first.
  • Furigana: small kana readings printed above kanji. Fushi's reader and dictionaries can show them.
  • Pitch accent: the rise and fall of pitch within a word — はし with different pitch is 箸 or 橋. The accent marks in the lookup popup and the pitch-accent dictionary refer to this.
  • Frequency: how often a word appears in a corpus; lower number = more common. Used to judge whether a word deserves a card and to order new cards.
  • Monolingual / bilingual: dictionaries classified by the language of their definitions. Monolingual (J–J) explains Japanese in Japanese; bilingual adds a translation. From the intermediate stage on, monolingual should be your main one.
  • Kokugo dictionary: a Japanese dictionary made for Japanese speakers (Meikyō, Daijisen, Shinmeikai and the like).
  • Romaji: Japanese written in Latin letters, Sousou no Frieren. Use it when searching for releases.
  • Raw / subbed: the original without translated subtitles / a version with them; for Japanese you want raws. More release-name terms.

Lookups and dictionaries ​

  • Lookup popup: the dictionary window that opens when you tap a word — definitions, pitch accent, frequency, audio and the plus all live in it.
  • Yomitan: the browser lookup extension (formerly Yomichan); its dictionary format became the de facto standard and Fushi reads it directly. What Shift lookup is.
  • Yomitan dictionaries / MDX / DSL / StarDict: the dictionary formats Fushi accepts, how to import them.
  • Recommended pack: the 9.5 GB one-tap download in onboarding — dictionaries, pitch accent, frequency, pronunciation library. Can I skip it.
  • Pronunciation library / audio sources: where the word audio behind the speaker button comes from; local libraries and online sources can both be configured.
  • Global lookup: select text in another app and call Fushi's lookup with a shortcut (Windows / macOS) or the text menu / floating ball (Android).
  • Deinflection: turning 食べなかった back into 食べる before looking it up. Dictionaries list base forms; this is why any inflected form still finds the entry.

Subtitles and video ​

  • External / embedded / burned-in: a subtitle file next to the video / a track packed inside the mkv / text painted into the picture. Which can be looked up.
  • SRT / ASS / VTT: three text subtitle formats. The differences.
  • Primary / secondary subtitle: the two subtitle tracks Fushi shows at once — the primary for lookups, the secondary as a translation reference. Using a secondary subtitle to transition.
  • Sync / offset: shifting the whole subtitle earlier or later to match the sound. When it's off.
  • Jimaku: a community-maintained Japanese subtitle site; Fushi's anime downloads can match from it automatically.
  • mkv / mp4, H.264 / HEVC, 1080p, bitrate: container, codec, resolution, sharpness. The video terms.
  • BDRip / WEB-DL / TVRip, release group, batch: where a release came from and how it was published. Reading release names.
  • Scraping: recognising a show from its filename and fetching poster, synopsis and episode list from the web. What it is and how to use it.
  • Metadata: the data scraping brings back. NFO: the file format that stores it next to the video; Jellyfin / Kodi read it too.
  • Jellyfin / Emby / Plex: media servers that live on a NAS and stream video to your devices; Fushi connects to all three directly. What they are, how to connect.
  • Streaming / transcoding: playing while transferring / the server converting video in real time into something the client can play.

Manga and books ​

  • OCR: recognising text in images. Manga has to be OCR'd before words can be tapped; Fushi's built-in model runs on-device. Reading manga online.
  • mokuro / .mokuro: a manga format carrying OCR results (the position and content of every line on each page) that Fushi's manga tapping relies on; the built-in Mokuro catalogue ships titles with it already done.
  • EPUB / TXT: the ebook formats Fushi reads; convert others (mobi, azw3) with Calibre.
  • Audiobook / alignment file: narration audio plus a subtitle that lines the audio up with the text. How the three fit together.
  • Transcription (ASR): having a machine listen to audio and write the text out. Fushi uses it to generate alignment files for audiobooks without subtitles, entirely on-device.
  • Match rate: the share of an audiobook's cues that found their place in the text; adjust the search window when it's low.

Online sources and downloads ​

  • Extension / source / repository: an extension is an APK containing one or more online sources (adapters for a website); a repository is the address listing installable extensions. Fushi is compatible with Mihon (manga) and Aniyomi (video) extensions, and uses LNReader plugins for novels. Installing them.
  • Stream (hoster): the different playback origins for the same episode in a video source, varying in quality and availability.
  • BT / torrent / magnet link / seeding / tracker / DHT: all explained in the BT article.
  • Nyaa: the largest index of Japanese anime releases and Fushi's default source when searching anime releases; Torznab: a unified index-site API provided by Jackett / Prowlarr.
  • Browse: a bottom-bar module holding Discover, online sources, extensions and download tasks (absent on iOS).
  • AI download: tell an AI the title and it finds the work, picks a release and downloads or subscribes, using an AI provider you configure. How it works.
  • qBittorrent: a common BT client that Fushi can drive externally.
  • Subscription: having Fushi check for new episodes periodically and download them automatically.
  • AniList / MAL / AniDB / VNDB / Bangumi: databases of works that Fushi uses to identify shows, fetch details and record progress.

Galgame ​

  • Galgame / visual novel (VN): games that advance through text, character art and voice acting — the richest immersion material there is. Hooking one into Fushi.
  • Hook / texthooker: pulling the currently displayed dialogue out of the game process. Special code (H-code): a hand-written capture rule for a specific game, used when the engine isn't recognised.
  • Text thread: the several streams of text a hook captures; you pick the clean dialogue one.
  • Locale switching / Locale Emulator: launching old games in a Japanese locale without changing the system language, to avoid garbled text.
  • Upscaling / Magpie: a tool that scales a low-resolution game window to full screen.

Fushi's own ​

  • Interconnect: direct connection between Fushi devices, one as the host sharing its library, the others as clients; LAN at home, and from outside it picks a working route automatically or goes through a P2P tunnel. Setting it up.
  • fushi_server / Fushi server: a Fushi host without a GUI, run on a NAS or server, that downloads, transcribes and OCRs for your devices.
  • Stable / debug: the two download channels; debug gets new features first. The difference.
  • Onboarding: the setup wizard on first launch; rerun it from Settings → System and about.
  • Browser extension: Fushi's own extension for lookups on any web page. Shift lookup.
  • Cloud backup / Sync & backup: backing data up to Google Drive / WebDAV or a local file, where your data lives.

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