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

System Requirements

Kanjika requires MeCab (a Japanese morphological analyzer) to be installed on your system.

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get install mecab libmecab-dev mecab-ipadic-utf8

macOS:

brew install mecab mecab-ipadic

Other systems: Please refer to the MeCab installation guide.

Gem 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 / ごだん), Ichidan (一段 / いちだん), 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" (たべます / tabemasu - eat/will eat)
Kanjika.conjugate("書く", :te)      # => "書いて" (かいて / kaite - write and...)

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

Using the Verb object

verb = Kanjika.verb('書く') # 書く = かく (kaku - to write)

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

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

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

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

Supported Conjugation Forms

Masu Form (Polite Present)

Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :masu)    # => "食べます" (たべます / tabemasu - eat/will eat)
Kanjika.conjugate("書く", :masu)      # => "書きます" (かきます / 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" (たべません / tabemasen - don't eat)

Te Form (Conjunctive)

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

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

Potential Form (Can do)

Kanjika.conjugate("食べる", :potential)  # => "食べられる" (たべられる / taberareru - can eat)
Kanjika.conjugate("書く", :potential)    # => "書ける" (かける / kakeru - can write)
Kanjika.conjugate("飲む", :potential)    # => "飲める" (のめる / 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 / ごだんどうし)

Verbs that end in u-column sounds. Examples:

書く (かく / kaku) - to write
飲む (のむ / nomu) - to drink
買う (かう / kau) - to buy
話す (はなす / hanasu) - to speak

Ichidan Verbs (一段動詞 / いちだんどうし)

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

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

Irregular Verbs

Only two main irregular verbs:

する (suru) - to do
来る (くる / kuru) - to come

Pronunciation Guide

To help beginners, we're adding pronunciation guides for the kanji used in this documentation and in the code. Each entry below shows the kanji, its furigana (kana reading), and its romaji.

食べる (たべる / taberu): to eat
書く (かく / kaku): to write
飲む (のむ / nomu): to drink
買う (かう / kau): to buy
話す (はなす / hanasu): to speak
見る (みる / miru): to see
起きる (おきる / okiru): to wake up
する (suru): to do
来る (くる / kuru): to come
五段 (ごだん / godan): five-step (verb type)
一段 (いちだん / ichidan): one-step (verb type)

Examples

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

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

See ROADMAP.md for the full list of proposed features awaiting discussion.

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 (たべられる) - taberareru)
- Causative (e.g., 食べさせる (たべさせる) - tabesaseru)
- Volitional (e.g., 食べよう (たべよう) - tabeyou)
- Imperative (e.g., 食べろ (たべろ) - 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

Runtime