u/ksnll

Hi, I’m Federico. I created LevelKana, an app to shorten the study time needed before you can start enjoying Japanese video games and manga. I shared it here a little while ago.

Some users wanted to start with the Pokemon path, which is mostly hiragana and has no kanji, but they were still at their very first steps in Japanese and didn’t know hiragana or katakana yet.

I usually point people to Tofugu, which in my opinion is still one of the best beginner resources. But I also felt that kana practice can be a bit dry: I wanted to bring the same gamified, progression-based style we use in LevelKana.

So I made this free hiragana practice: https://levelkana.com/kana/hiragana/

The idea is pretty simple:

unlock hiragana in small groups
practice one row at a time
get extra practice for what is still weak

The full hiragana and katakana path is free. Registration kicks in partway through so your progress can be saved if you decide to continue.

I’d really appreciate feedback, especially from beginners or people who remember learning kana. Does the pacing feel useful, or would you change anything?

Federico

Hi everyone,

I made a Japanese reading practice site for learners who want to get better at reading manga and games.

I started learning Japanese because I wanted to read more in the language, especially manga and video games. I started with the awesome wanikani, that helped me a lot with kanji recognition, and I genuinely recommend it. But after a few months, I felt a big gap as I knew quite a few kanji, but I felt I was still very far from reading manga/videogames.

So I started building LevelKana:

https://levelkana.com

The idea is not to replace wanikani, grammar study, Anki, or immersion. It’s more of a bridge between studying and reading content that is actually engaging (at least, for me, more than graded readers).

Right now it includes:

- themed learning paths around game/manga-style vocabulary

- kanji and vocab breakdowns

- example sentences from manga/games

- SRS-style review

- a focus on words you are likely to see in real content

There’s a free part, so you can try the basic idea without paying.

I’m mainly posting because I’d really like feedback from Japanese learners: does this feel useful, confusing, too narrow, or missing something important?

If you try it and send thoughtful feedback, I’d be happy to give you an early-user discount. I’m also planning to give lifetime access to a few people who provide especially helpful feedback, since that would genuinely help shape the project.

There’s also a small Discord for feedback, but joining is optional:

https://discord.gg/WPnFtUTc

Thanks!

I made a free hiragana practice page

I made a Japanese reading practice site for learners who want to read manga and games