Kana Overview

Kana are characters used in Japanese for writing words in general by spelling them out, as compared to "Kanji" which express meanings in the words. Each kana has two different versions, "Hiragana" and "Katakana".

More info on Kana on the info page (opens in a new window).

Kana Trainer Overview

Though there's other improvements and additions planned, the Kana trainer is quite ready to use, at least for reading lessons- one obvious potential addition would be a writing trainer. Some fine-tuning is also feasible.

Before you start, you'll notice there are two types of lesson, "intro lessons" and "standard lessons" (a couple other types are being planned too, check back later). What's that all about then? Pretty simple really, they're just aimed at people with different levels of experience.

If you've never seen Kana before, or you're otherwise a newbie, or maybe if you're quite rusty, you want to start on the intro lessons. These each focus on a small set of kana, and give you a little "cheat-sheet" for a while, so you can get to grips with them better.

If on the other hand you're reasonably familiar with the kana already, or you've got to grips with the associated intro-lessons, you should most likely try the standard lessons. These lack the cheat-sheet, and cover a larger set of kana each- each standard lesson covers the kana from 2 or 3 intro-lessons.

More about lesson types on the Info page (opens in a new window)

How to use the lessons themselves isn't complicated, although you may find them difficult when you're new to each set. The trainer shows you a kana character. You say what it is in the box provided- not what it "means", if it spells anything, simply what syllable it is, which is what kana are all about. You're then told if you got it right or wrong, and what the answer was in either case, and then you're asked another. This continues until you've got each one right a few times.

If it sounds a bit daunting, well the intro tests are relatively easy; trivial at first, and you'll tend to have picked much of it up after a few minutes, even if you feel like you're doing very badly in the middle.

There's a few hints and tips on the Info page (opens in a new window)