A few weeks ago we told you about Kana Hanko while it was still in closed testing. It's now live on Google Play, free for anyone with an Android phone to download.
We built it for a simple reason. We're about to spend half of each year in Japan, and learning to read hiragana and katakana is the first real step from pointing at pictures to reading a menu, a train sign, or a konbini shelf. Every app we tried either held back most of the characters, filled the gaps between questions with ads, or pushed a subscription before we'd learned anything. So we made the one we wanted.
Get Kana Hanko on Google Play →
What You Get, Free
Everything you need to learn the full kana system costs nothing, and there are no ads anywhere in the app:
- All 208 characters: 104 hiragana and 104 katakana, including the voiced, semi-voiced, and combination forms that most apps leave out
- Tap-to-hear audio for every character
- Drill mode, a spaced-repetition quiz that brings back the characters you keep missing
- Listening mode: hear a character, pick what you heard
- Filters by row or tier, so you can focus on one row or the whole set
- Streak, accuracy, and mastery tracking
- Full offline use, with no account and no sign-up
The One Optional Upgrade
If you want to go further, a single one-time purchase (not a subscription) adds animated stroke order with finger-tracing practice for all 208 characters, plus a progress dashboard with per-character accuracy and 30-day trends. Everything that's free stays free either way.
Your Data Stays on Your Phone
There's no account, no analytics, and no advertising SDK. Your progress lives on your device, and if you buy the upgrade, Google Play handles the payment directly.
Put It to Use
Once you know the kana, our guide to the 30 Japanese phrases that get you through restaurants and konbini becomes much easier to use, because you can read the phrases as well as say them.
The Bottom Line
Kana Hanko is live, free, and ad-free, and we're adding to it as we go. If you try it, a rating on Google Play helps other learners find it, and if something isn't working, email us at info@theengineeredescape.com. We read every message.