「千年」 – sennen

A modern, minimal Japanese learning platform that delivers daily kanji and vocabulary,
powered by JMdict and KANJIDIC with beautiful furigana rendering.

✨ Features

• 📆 Daily kanji and words
• 💫 Furigana rendering for kanji compounds
• 🌓 Dark and Light mode support
• 📱 Responsive design for all devices
• 🚀 Fast and simple static site generation
• 🔄 10-year calendar with consistent daily content into past and future
• 📠 JSON API for the daily content

🚀 Quick Start

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/PlexSheep/sennen.git
cd sennen

# Install sennen
pip install -e .

# Download dictionary files
sennen download

# Generate the site
sennen generate

# Done! The site should now be generated to the directory data/site

# You can use any webserver to serve the static files in data/site
# sennen serve uses a basic python webserver for development purposes
# With this, you can reach the website at http://localhost:8000
sennen serve

🛠️ Technology Stack

• Backend:

  • Python for static site generation
  • XML parsing for JMdict and KANJIDIC2
  • Custom hacky furigana generation
  • Jinja2 templates

• Frontend:

  • Vanilla JavaScript for interactivity and webui
  • Tailwind CSS for styling
  • Dark mode with toggle switch

📚 Content Generation

Sennen uses a unique algorithm to select daily content:

1. Parses JMdict and KANJIDIC2 XML files
2. Filters content based on certin quiterias (quality of data, commonness of word or kanji)
3. Uses a deterministic random selection based on date and a magic prime number
4. Generates static JSON files for each day with kanji and word of the day
5. Pre-renders HTML templates with Jinja2

💡 Development

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Internet connection (for dictionary downloads)
• Basic understanding of Japanese language structure 😼

Project Structure

sennen/
├── data/                       # Generated data and source files (dictionaries)
├── ressources/                 # Static assets and templates
│   ├── static/                 # CSS, JavaScript, and images
│   └── templates/              # Jinja2 templates
└── src/
    └── sennen/                 # Python source code
        ├── parse/              # XML parsing modules for the dictionaries
        ├── download_dicts.py   # downloads the source dictionaries
        ├── generate.py         # generates the website
        └── main.py             # CLI entry point

Building from Source

1. Clone the repository
2. Install development dependencies
3. Generate development build
4. use sennen to download the sources and generate the site
5. Start local server

🤝 Contributing

All Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request or Issue (Bug Reports and Feature Requests). For major changes, please open an issue before making a PR to discuss what you would like to change. You may also use the discussions tab if you have any questions.

For code contributions please make sure to:

• Follow the existing code style
• Add Tests for new features and make sure no Tests break
• Update documentation as needed

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• JMdict/EDICT and KANJIDIC projects
• Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group
• Tailwind CSS
• The Japanese language learning community

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Made for 日本語 learners and speakers everywhere