What is Accha?

Accha is a program intended to help people learn the Hindi alphabet (Devanāgarī). It is written in Java/Swing, and should run equally well on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux computers.

Current Features

• Unicode display of Devanāgarī
• Audio of correct pronunciation
• Choose which letters to study
• Phonetic textual input (i.e. “sa” for स)
• Display of previous right answer

Future Features

• Animations that demonstrate how to write the glyphs
• A more robust "hint" system, including multiple-choice
• Intelligent filtering of questions based on past mistakes
• Display of statistics (percent correct, speed, etc.)
• Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet to display answers
• Better-quality sound files
• Vowels in addition to the Devanāgarī consonants
• Additional lessons containing entire words

Installation Instructions

Currently there’s not much to install. Download the JAR file and run it. In OS X, simply double-click on the downloaded JAR. In Linux, assuming you have Java installed, you can run Accha from the command line like this: java -jar Accha-0.1beta.jar I’m not sure the easiest way to run JAR files under Windows—if I figure it out, I’ll put instructions here.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. I have an idea for a great feature! Will you add it to Accha?

   Most likely! I’m looking for feedback on this project and I want to know what features will be most helpful to other people who are learning Hindi. So if one of the above-listed "future features" is something you really want, or you have something in mind that’s not even on the list, drop me a line!

2. How do I contact you?

The easiest way is by email: rosswerner [at] users [dot] sourceforge [dot] net. Alternatively, the Accha project page has several forums available for people to use:

• Is something broken? File a bug report.
• Can’t figure something out? Create a support request.
• Have an idea for Accha? Submit a feature request.


3. I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to type for one of the letters?!

   I used the transliterations from this site: http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/devanagari.html. They may be different from the ones you’re accustomed to.

4. Hey, where’s the source code? I thought Accha was Open Source Software?!

   It is! Accha is licensed under the GPL. The JAR file that you download contains all the source files required to compile Accha. Simply unzip it with WinZip or any other utility that handles zip files (you may have to change the file extension to ".zip").

   Alternatively, you can get the code out of CVS. Instructions on how to do this can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=151211.