How to play
Pick one or more groups of kanji on the start screen and press Start. A kanji appears in the middle of the screen with four or six English meanings below it. Click or tap the right one, or press the number shown in the corner of each answer. The answer turns green or red, and the panel below shows the kanji’s meaning, its on and kun readings, and one common word that uses it. Read it, then press Enter or click Next. You can also turn the question around: see a meaning and pick the kanji.
A session has 10, 20 or 50 questions, or runs until you end it. The summary shows your score, accuracy, best streak and time, the kanji that reached the learned level and the ones you missed, with a button to practise just those again.
Which kanji are included
The trainer covers 100 of the first kanji that beginners learn, the usual level of the JLPT N5 exam. The exam has published no official kanji list since 2010, so the set follows the lists that most N5 textbooks share. They come in eight groups:
| Group | Kanji |
|---|---|
| Numbers & money | 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 百 千 万 円 |
| Days & time | 日 月 火 水 木 金 土 年 時 分 半 今 週 毎 間 |
| People & body | 人 男 女 子 父 母 友 名 先 生 口 目 耳 手 足 |
| Nature | 山 川 天 雨 花 空 魚 |
| Directions | 上 下 中 外 右 左 前 後 東 西 南 北 |
| Places & things | 学 校 会 社 国 駅 道 店 車 電 本 語 |
| Describing | 大 小 長 高 安 新 古 白 多 少 何 |
| Actions | 見 行 来 出 入 食 飲 言 話 読 書 聞 休 買 |
The seven weekday kanji 日 月 火 水 木 金 土 sit in the time group because each names a day of the week, even though most of them are nature words: fire, water, tree, gold and soil.
On and kun readings
Most kanji have two kinds of reading. The on reading came from Chinese and is used mainly in compound words; dictionaries write it in katakana, for example ニチ (nichi) in 日本 (nihon, Japan). The kun reading is the native Japanese word; it is written in hiragana, for example ひ (hi, sun or day). When a kun reading continues with kana after the kanji, the trailing part, called okurigana, is shown in grey: 見る is み plus る, read miru. Romaji follows Hepburn spelling with long vowels marked, so コウ is kō.
The readings are shown after every answer as information, not as a test, because which reading is used depends on the word. Only the most common readings are listed; some kanji have no kun reading in everyday use.
How the smart repetition works
Each kanji has a mastery level from 0 to 5, shown as dots above the question and as a bar in the progress grid. A right answer adds one level and a wrong answer takes away two. A kanji counts as learned at level 3 and mastered at level 5. Questions are drawn at random but weighted: a missed kanji at level 0 is twice as likely as one you have not seen yet and twenty times as likely as a mastered one, and every miss comes back after two to four other questions. The same kanji is never asked twice in a row. Your levels are saved in this browser after every answer.
Look-alike kanji
The wrong answers include kanji that look alike or mean something close: 日 day, 目 eye, 白 white and 百 hundred; 人 person, 入 enter and 八 eight; 木 tree, 本 book and 休 rest; 間 interval and 聞 hear; 小 small and 少 few. After a mix-up a short note points to the stroke or part that tells them apart, such as the extra line that turns 大 big into 天 heaven. Kanji whose meanings overlap, like 天 heaven and 空 sky, are never offered together, so each question has exactly one right answer.
Controls
- Mouse or touch: click or tap an answer, then Next. The buttons under the screen end the session, open your progress and switch to full screen.
- Keyboard: 1–6 pick an answer, the arrow keys move between answers and Enter picks one, Enter or Space goes on, Esc ends the session, F toggles full screen and S reads the readings aloud when a Japanese voice is available.
Frequently asked questions
Is my progress saved?
Yes, in this browser only, and nothing is sent anywhere. Open Progress to see every kanji, or to reset everything after a confirmation.
Should I learn kana first?
It helps, because the readings are written in kana. The Kana Trainer on this site drills hiragana and katakana the same way.