Online Tool Store
Hiragana Katakana Trainer
Practise hiragana and katakana recognition and recall, with the visually confusable pairs and the dakuten variants drilled separately.
🔒 This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.
Education
Hiragana Katakana Trainer
Frontend preview — no upload or external service.
Drill set
20 questions on the basic hiragana set, weighted toward the confusable pairs — さ/ち, ね/れ/わ, め/ぬ — which is where most errors concentrate.
How the Hiragana Katakana Trainer works
- Learn hiragana first and completely before starting katakana; interleaving them early causes lasting confusion.
- Drill the confusable pairs as sets rather than meeting them scattered through the alphabet.
- Switch to romaji-to-kana once recognition is fast — recall is the harder and more useful direction.
FAQ
Which script should I learn first?
Hiragana, completely, then katakana. They cover the same sounds with different shapes, and learning both at once means every sound has two competing forms before either is secure.
Which kana get confused most?
さ and ち, ね れ わ, め and ぬ, and in katakana シ and ツ, ソ and ン. Those last two pairs differ mainly in stroke direction, which is nearly invisible in print and obvious once you learn the stroke order.
How long does it take?
Most learners reach reliable recognition of both scripts in a few weeks of daily short sessions. Recall lags recognition, and that gap is normal rather than a sign of slow progress.
How we compare
| Feature | Online Tool Store | Pen and paper | A classroom platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confusable pairs weighted | ✓ | Even coverage | Sometimes |
| Both directions | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| No account | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Works offline once loaded | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
Hiragana Katakana Trainer weights the confusable pairs deliberately, because even coverage spends most of its time on kana you already know.