To keep some order with this very chaotic blog I thought I would make a series of websites that you can go to learn Japanese. You know, the best of the best of the best. Site’s where it’s actually fun to study and can keep you entertained forever. To start off I chose Read the Kanji.

The Study

Read The Kanji helps you learn kanji through a repetition of reading kanji and typing it’s pronunciation. Pretty simple actually, the kanji comes up, you see it, some cogs start moving in your head, and then you type in the hiragana or pronunciation. You also have the option of what you see when studying, you can remove all elements except the English meaning to really test yourself or include every factor the make it easier.

Like many other great new study tools popping up over the internet, Read The Kanji has an algorithm which keeps track of every mistake and correct answer so it knows exactly what it needs to do to help you study.

The Kanji

All you people out there who are having trouble with their kanji for the JLPT, you’re in luck, the only vocabulary that Read The Kanji offers is from any of the JLPT tests plus hiragana and katakana! Obviously it’s intended for people who will take the JLPT but don’t think that the kanji won’t be helpful if you’re not going to sit the test.

The Progress

How you view your progress is the funnest part of Read The Kanji (besides actually learning the kanji). Every time you’re correct when identifying a word, you increase in strength and every time you incorrectly identify a word, your strength decreases so it’s like an actual game of leveling up! The different levels are also identified with by colors, you change through red to green as you increase in strength and white is untested. You can graphically see how well you’re studying through an abundance of mediums but the easiest to take in is the kanji grid.

With the kanji grid you’ll be able to see exactly what you need help with and what you have completely finished. So Read The Kanji keeps track of you’re progress every step of the way.

Conclusion

The title of this post reads “Read the Kanji, Amazingly Addictive” because that’s what it is! Even though you might feel accomplished for the day in studying, you can’t stop, you want to watch those percentages raise higher and higher! It’s like you can just sit there for hours watching more of those little squares go from red to green and you feel even more accomplished when you finally stop. So go check out to Read The Kanji and pwn that board!

Edit: This article is entered into a great competition held by NihongoUp concerning their Japanese Learning Resources page which you should check out.

Tags: kanji, read the kanji, Resources, Study