Practice · spaced repetition

Katakana, a few a day.

All 104 katakana characters are in this deck: the 46 basic ones first, then the 25 voiced ones such as ガ, then the 33 combined ones such as キャ. You meet ten new ones a day, and each comes back just before you would forget it.

How it works

You see a character and say how it is read. Turn the card to check, then answer honestly: Again, Hard, Good or Easy. There is nothing to add or tick: every character is already in the deck, in the order the chart teaches them.

The schedule. A character you know comes back after eight hours, then a day, two days, a week, two weeks, a month and four months. After that it is retired. Get one wrong and it drops back two steps.

The four answers move it along that ladder. Again means you did not know it: it drops back two steps and is shown once more before you finish. Hard means you got there slowly: it stays on its step and comes back after the same gap. Good means you knew it: up one step. Easy means it was obvious: up two steps, so it gets to Solid in about a week instead of about three and a half.

Ten new a day is a limit, not a target, and you can change it under Settings. At ten a day the basic 46 take five days and all 104 take eleven. Reviews that are due are never limited.

This deck keeps its own record and sets its own pace. The katakana chart has a drill for testing yourself on any characters you tick, as often as you like, and writing practice teaches the stroke order. Neither changes your schedule here. Katakana goes faster if hiragana is already steady, because the sounds are the same. If it is not, do the hiragana deck first.