Kana Dojo

About

Japanese is written with two phonetic alphabets, and this is where you learn to read them. Hiragana is the round one used for native words; katakana is the angular one used for loanwords like テレビ (terebi — TV). Same sounds, two costumes. Eight lessons walk you from the first ten characters to whole words with meanings.

Every character keeps a private tally of how often it fooled you, and the ones that owe you come back more often until they stop missing. Five right in a row and a character counts as solid; the lesson list shows how many you have banked.

A round is twenty questions. Right answers score 100 points, answering fast is worth up to 50 more, and a streak adds a little on top — so the score you post is speed and accuracy in one number.

If your device has a Japanese voice, every answer is spoken aloud. Hearing the sound while you see the shape is half the trick.

Controls

• Tap or click an answer. Keys 1-4 work too.
• In Type romaji mode, spell the sound and press Enter. Both hepburn (shi, chi, fu) and keyboard style (si, ti, hu) count.
• Esc drops back to the lesson list.
• Study mode lays the lesson out flat — tap a card to hear it spoken.