How it works

Every answer you give, in a program, Free play, a Japan quiz or the daily challenge, goes into Smart Review. It uses FSRS, a modern spaced-repetition method: for each item it tracks how stable your memory is and how hard the item is for you, and brings it back just before you'd forget it (aiming at a 90% chance you still remember).

• Three skills per item. Reading it (Japanese to reading), recalling it (meaning to Japanese) and hearing it (audio to reading) are scheduled separately, because you can know one and not the others.
• How you answered counts. Right on the first try, typed: a good review. Right with a hint or by multiple choice: a harder one, so it comes back sooner. Wrong: it starts again.
• Learned and known. An item is learned when your latest answer was right. It's known once its memory is stable for three weeks or more: that's what the JLPT bars on your progress count.
• A daily cap, so nothing piles up. 20 reviews a day free, up to 100 for KanaMembers (you can set it as low as 5). The items you're most likely to forget come first; the rest wait. Holiday mode pauses it all.

A program is a course, from kana to JLPT N1, numbered like manga volumes (第1巻, 第2巻…). It teaches a few items per chapter in a sensible order.

• Chapters open as you learn. The next chapter opens when you've learned 80% of the one before.
• Practice, sprints and tests. Practice chapters show what you know in a new form (kana in handwriting, for one). Sprints are timed multiple-choice runs over everything so far. Each kana script ends with a test: 20 typed answers, no hints, pass with 90%. None of them block the way forward.
• Already know some? Take the placement test: four items from each chapter, typed. Every chapter where you get three of four right is marked learned, and the test stops after two chapters in a row you don't know yet. It never undoes practice you've done.

• XP comes from answers right on the first try (fewer with a hint), with a bonus for accuracy and another for a perfect session without hints. Practice mode earns none, so it's a safe place to try things.
• Combos are runs of right answers in a row. A wrong answer ends one; skipping doesn't. Your best combo is kept in your history.
• Levels follow your total XP: level 2 at 100 XP, level 3 at 400, level 4 at 900, and so on, each a little further than the last. Each has a title, from Kana Newbie at level 1 to Kami-sama at level 30.

Your streak counts the days in a row you finish at least one session, by your own clock, so travelling or a clock change never breaks it. Every 7th day of a streak earns a freeze, and so do completing a program and winning a league week. You can hold three: if you miss a day, one is used automatically and the streak carries on.

10 items a day, the same for everyone on a level: kana and N5 for everyone, N4 to N1 for KanaMembers. Typed answers only. You score a point for each item right on the first try without a hint, and time breaks ties. Your first attempt of the day is the one ranked, and each day is a numbered issue.

Each week you're placed in a league with learners at your stage: levels 1 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 19, or 20 and up, set by your level at your first game of the week. You score a point for every item right on the first try without a hint, in any game except practice; accuracy breaks ties. The week ends on Monday at 00:00 UTC, and everyone who played gets a notice with their place. Only learners with a public profile are named on the boards.

Shared things run on UTC, so everyone sees the same board. Your own things run on your own day.

More in Help. What's free and what isn't: Pricing. Everything in one list: Features.