Drawing
Draw あ
In the course you draw each character with your finger or mouse and the app checks its shape. Here you can trace over the template and see the order of the strokes.
Japanese alphabet course
Learn hiragana and katakana by drawing, listening and reading
Hiragana and katakana in 20 short blocks: you hear each character, pick it out, type it on a kana keyboard and draw it with your finger. After every block you read real Japanese words, not just single characters.
Most people learn kana from a chart: print it, recite "a, i, u, e, o", and a week later mix up ね and れ, シ and ツ. A chart teaches you to recognise a character in a chart. It does not teach you to read a word on a sign, a menu or a textbook page.
This course works differently: you hear every character, pick it out from its look-alikes, type it and draw it, and straight away read whole words with it. Reviews come back just as a character starts to slip.
20blocks
152characters and sounds
474words to read
6kinds of exercise
Try the exercises
These are miniatures of the exercises in the course. Try them here, no account needed.
Listening
Which character do you hear?
Listen to the voice and pick the character. The course puts the ones that are easy to confuse next to the right answer.
Recognition
How do you read it?
You see a character and pick its sound. ね, れ, わ and ぬ are a classic trap: they differ by a single loop.
ね
Minimal pairs
Building or beer?
In Japanese the length of a vowel changes the word. Listen and pick which of the two you heard.
Kana keyboard
Type "cat"
In the course you type words on a kana keyboard laid out like the chart. Type ねこ.
„cat”
Look-alikes
シ or ツ?
shi and tsu look almost the same. The direction of the strokes tells them apart, so the course shows them side by side before you start mixing them up.
Stroke order: KanjiVG © Ulrich Apel · CC BY-SA 3.0
The chart
Tap a character to hear it and see the order its strokes are written in.
The course, block by block
Hiragana 1 — The five vowels
あ い う え お: almost every Japanese sound ends in one of these five. Your first words: いえ (house) and あい (love).
Hiragana 2 — The k-row
か き く け こ: k + each vowel. Now you can read かお (face), えき (station) and あかい (red).
Hiragana 3 — The s-row
さ し す せ そ — careful: し says shi, not si. With them: あさ (morning), かさ (umbrella) and すし.
Hiragana 4 — The t-row
た ち つ て と — two surprises: ち is chi and つ is tsu. Read たこ (octopus), くつ (shoes) and ちかてつ (subway).
Hiragana 5 — The n-row and ん
な に ぬ ね の, plus ん — the only kana with no vowel. Read いぬ (dog), せんせい (teacher) and ねこ (cat).
Hiragana 6 — The h-row
は ひ ふ へ ほ — ふ is a soft fu, blown, not bitten. Read はな (flower), ほし (star) and にほん (Japan).
Hiragana 7 — The m-row
ま み む め も: read あたま (head), うみ (sea), みかん (mandarin) and さしみ.
Hiragana 8 — Y, w and the particle を
や ゆ よ, わ, and を — said o, used only to mark the object: ほんをよむ (read a book). Plus おはよう (good morning).
Hiragana 9 — The r-row
ら り る れ ろ — a light tap of the tongue, halfway between r and l. Read そら (sky), くるま (car) and さくら.
Hiragana 10 — Two little dots
Two marks (゛, dakuten) voice a kana: か→が, さ→ざ, た→だ. ぢ and づ sound just like じ and ず. Read かぎ (key), みず (water) and ともだち (friend).
Hiragana 11 — B and p
The h-row takes two marks for b (は→ば) or a small circle for p (は→ぱ). Read たべる (to eat), えんぴつ (pencil) and かんぱい!
Hiragana 12 — Small っ and long vowels
A small っ is a short pause that doubles the next sound: きて (come!) → きって (stamp). A second vowel makes a sound long: おばさん → おばあさん.
Hiragana 13 — Small ゃ ゅ ょ
A small ゃ, ゅ or ょ after an i-kana makes one sound: き + ゃ = きゃ (kya). Read おちゃ (tea), きょう (today) and でんしゃ (train).
Katakana 1 — Same sounds, new shapes
Katakana writes the same sounds for words from abroad. Start with a, k, s, ン and the long-vowel line ー: ケーキ (cake), スキー (skiing).
Katakana 2 — T, n and h
Three rows at once — you know the sounds. Watch シ/ツ: same dots, different stroke. Read タクシー, テニス and コーヒー.
Katakana 3 — M, y, r and w
The last plain rows: マ…ワ. Now you read カメラ, ホテル, レストラン — and ラーメン.
Katakana 4 — Dots and circles
゛ and ゜ work exactly as in hiragana: カ→ガ, ハ→バ→パ. Read テレビ, パン, ギター — and ビール.
Katakana 5 — Small ッ
A small ッ is the same pause as っ: ベッド (bed), ポケット (pocket), サッカー (football).
Katakana 6 — Small ャ ュ ョ
Small ャ ュ ョ join the kana before them, as in hiragana: シャ = sha, ジュ = ju. Read シャツ, ニュース and チョコレート.
Katakana 7 — Sounds Japanese didn't have
Small ァ ィ ェ ォ build sounds for foreign words: フォ = fo, ティ = ti, シェ = she. Read フォーク, カフェ — and パーティー!
How it works
Every character five ways
You meet each character with a picture mnemonic, hear it, pick it out among look-alikes, type it and draw it. Each route fixes it from a different side.
Words from the first block
After the five vowels you already read いえ (house) and あい (love). The course has 474 words, and some come straight from our Japanese course for beginners, so you will meet them again later.
Romaji as a guide, not a crutch
Each sound shows its Hepburn spelling, the one you will see on signs and menus in Japan, so you always know what you are reading. The goal is to read kana without it.
Reviews at the right moment
Characters that slip come back more often, the ones you know less often. You never have to decide what to review.
Who is it for
- You are starting Japanese and want to learn the script properly instead of leaning on romaji.
- You watch anime or read manga and want to read the subtitles and speech bubbles, not guess them.
- You are going to Japan and want to read a station, a menu and a sign in katakana.
- You already know hiragana, but katakana keeps getting mixed up.
Method & curriculum
The course has 20 blocks: 13 blocks of hiragana, then 7 of katakana. A block brings from one to about fifteen new characters and 10 to 30 words you can already read with them.
Hiragana comes first, row by row (a, k, s, t, n…), then the characters with dots and circles (が, ぱ), small っ and long vowels, and finally combinations like きゃ. Katakana repeats the same sounds with new shapes and adds the combinations used in loanwords, such as ファ and ティ.
The course teaches kana, the two Japanese syllabaries. Kanji is a separate stage: after kana you move on to our Japanese course for beginners, where words with kanji arrive gradually.
What users say
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Frequently asked questions
Should I start with hiragana or katakana?
Hiragana. Japanese writes endings, particles and most simple words in it, so you cannot read a single sentence without it. Katakana is the same sounds in other shapes, used mainly for loanwords, and goes much faster once you know hiragana.
How many characters are there in hiragana and katakana?
Each syllabary has 46 basic characters. On top come the versions with dots and a circle (が, ぱ), small っ, ゃ, ゅ, ょ, and ー, which lengthens a vowel in katakana. The course has 152 of them in total, combinations included.
Do I need to know romaji?
No. Each sound shows its Hepburn spelling because that is what you will see on signs in Japan, but the goal is reading kana without it.
Does the course teach kanji?
No. This course teaches hiragana and katakana only. Kanji are in our Japanese course for beginners, which you move on to after kana.
Can I practise on my phone?
Yes. In a phone browser every exercise works, finger drawing included. In the iOS and Android apps the script exercises arrive with the next update; until then the course is available there as regular flashcards.
Is the course free?
You start for free and try the course without risk. Full access to all courses and collections is paid; see the pricing page for details.