Kanjika

A practical Ruby gem for Japanese verb conjugation. Kanjika provides an easy-to-use interface for conjugating Japanese verbs across multiple forms including masu (polite), te, and potential forms.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'kanjika'

And then execute:

bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

gem install kanjika

Features

🎌 Japanese verb conjugation (multiple forms)
📝 Support for all verb types: Godan (五段), Ichidan (一段), and Irregular verbs
🔄 Multiple conjugation forms: te-form, masu-form, potential
🎯 Simple and intuitive API
⚡ Built on top of Ve and Mojinizer for accurate morphological analysis

Usage

Basic Conjugation

Kanjika provides two main ways to conjugate verbs:

Using the module-level method

require 'kanjika'

# Conjugate directly
Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :masu)  # => "食べます" (tabemasu - eat/will eat)
Kanjika.conjugate("書く", :te)      # => "書いて" (kaite - write and...)

# Negative forms
Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :masu, negative: true)  # => "食べません" (tabemasen - don't eat)
Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :te, negative: true)    # => "食べなくて" (tabenakute - not eating/without eating)

Using the Verb object

verb = Kanjika.verb('書く')

# Get the masu form (polite present/future)
verb.conjugate(:masu)      # => "書きます" (kakimasu - write/will write)
verb.to(:masu)             # => "書きます" (alias)

# Get the te form (connective)
verb.conjugate(:te)        # => "書いて" (kaite - write and...)

# Get the potential form (can do)
verb.conjugate(:potential) # => "書ける" (kakeru - can write)

# Negative forms
verb.conjugate(:masu, negative: true)  # => "書きません" (kakimasen - don't write)
verb.conjugate(:te, negative: true)    # => "書かなくて" (kakanakute - not writing/without writing)

Supported Conjugation Forms

Masu Form (Polite Present)

Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :masu)    # => "食べます" (tabemasu - eat/will eat)
Kanjika.conjugate("書く", :masu)      # => "書きます" (kakimasu - write/will write)
Kanjika.conjugate("する", :masu)      # => "します" (shimasu - do/will do)

# Negative
Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :masu, negative: true)  # => "食べません" (tabemasen - don't eat)

Te Form (Conjunctive)

Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :te)      # => "食べて" (tabete - eat and...)
Kanjika.conjugate("書く", :te)        # => "書いて" (kaite - write and...)
Kanjika.conjugate("飲む", :te)        # => "飲んで" (nonde - drink and...)
Kanjika.conjugate("買う", :te)        # => "買って" (katte - buy and...)

# Negative
Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :te, negative: true)    # => "食べなくて" (tabenakute - not eating/without eating)

Potential Form (Can do)

Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :potential)  # => "食べられる" (taberareru - can eat)
Kanjika.conjugate("書く", :potential)    # => "書ける" (kakeru - can write)
Kanjika.conjugate("飲む", :potential)    # => "飲める" (nomeru - can drink)
Kanjika.conjugate("する", :potential)    # => "できる" (dekiru - can do)

Verb Types

Kanjika handles all three types of Japanese verbs:

Godan Verbs (五段動詞)

Verbs that end in u-column sounds. Examples:

書く (kaku) - to write
飲む (nomu) - to drink
買う (kau) - to buy
話す (hanasu) - to speak

Ichidan Verbs (一段動詞)

Verbs that end in -eru or -iru. Examples:

食べる (taberu) - to eat
見る (miru) - to see
起きる (okiru) - to wake up

Irregular Verbs

Only two main irregular verbs:

する (suru) - to do
来る (kuru) - to come

Pronunciation Guide

To help beginners, we're adding pronunciation guides for the kanji used in this documentation and in the code.

食べる (taberu): to eat
書く (kaku): to write
飲む (nomu): to drink
買う (kau): to buy
話す (hanasu): to speak
見る (miru): to see
起きる (okiru): to wake up
する (suru): to do
来る (kuru): to come
五段 (godan): five-step (verb type)
一段 (ichidan): one-step (verb type)

Examples

# 食べる (taberu - to eat) - Ichidan
verb = "食べる"
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :masu)       # => "食べます" (tabemasu - eat/will eat)
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :te)         # => "食べて" (tabete - eat and...)
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :potential)  # => "食べられる" (taberareru - can eat)

# 書く (kaku - to write) - Godan
verb = "書く"
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :masu)       # => "書きます" (kakimasu - write/will write)
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :te)         # => "書いて" (kaite - write and...)
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :potential)  # => "書ける" (kakeru - can write)

# する (suru - to do) - Irregular
verb = "する"
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :masu)       # => "します" (shimasu - do/will do)
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :te)         # => "して" (shite - do and...)
Kanjika.conjugate(verb, :potential)  # => "できる" (dekiru - can do)

Development

After checking out the repo, run:

bundle install

Run the tests:

bundle exec rspec

Run the linter:

bundle exec standardrb

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/fagnerpereira/kanjika_gem.

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create new Pull Request

Roadmap

Here are some of the features we're planning to add to Kanjika:

More Conjugation Forms: We'll be adding support for more conjugation forms, such as:
- Passive (e.g., 食べられる - taberareru)
- Causative (e.g., 食べさせる - tabesaseru)
- Volitional (e.g., 食べよう - tabeyou)
- Imperative (e.g., 食べろ - tabero)
Adjective Conjugation: Support for i-adjectives and na-adjectives.
Verb Transitivity: The ability to identify if a verb is transitive or intransitive.
Kanji Pronunciation: We will add comments to the code to help beginners with the pronunciation of unknown kanji.
Web Interface: A simple web interface to demonstrate the gem's capabilities.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Credits

Built with:

Ve - Japanese morphological analyzer
Mojinizer - Japanese character utilities

kanjika

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