Kana - Hiragana and Katakana

55 of 100 · reviews
4.8of 5 · store
12,399ratings on the App Store
482reviews read

An editorial reading of the saved reviews

A narrow-purpose app for learning the Japanese syllabaries (hiragana and katakana). Not a general-purpose flashcard engine. Spaced repetition is advertised in the 'smart quiz' mode, but it's critically broken: the quiz ignores katakana and only shows hiragana, even on high streaks, instead of surfacing weak characters. Handwriting recognition is unreliable for katakana.

Screenshots

What people use it for

Japanese beginners who only need to learn hiragana. For katakana, the app is effectively unusable based on current reviews.

What reviews praise

Minimal and free, works well for hiragana, clean interface without clutter, per-character progress tracking.

What reviews complain about

Smart quiz is broken for katakana the core feature doesn't work.
Handwriting recognition is unreliable.
No onboarding for new users.
Saving custom character lists is buggy.

What users experience

2 excerpts from the breakdown. These are individual cases, not a verdict on all users.

Non of the "smart quiz" options work correctly. I only get the same 40 characters that have streaks of 20+ when I have 100s that only had a streak of 1 or two. Since this app doesn't show you the kana you actually need to learn it's effectively useless.

This app is great for learning kana and seeing your stats and progress. However the smart quiz does not seem to work with katakana. No matter how low my streak or points are for katakana, they don't show up on the smart quiz, just hiragana.