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Kana by Hand teaches you how to write Japanese hiragana and katakana by hand. You draw the characters on the screen and Kana by Hand will judge if they are correct or not. Writing is the best possible way to learn, since it makes you active in the learning process.
If you already know hiragana and katakana, don't miss Kanji by Hand. It works the same way but comes with all the kanji you'll ever need. It's a perfect way to continue when you're done with Kana by Hand.
Advanced writing tutor
Kana by Hand is smart and tells you when you make mistakes. When reviewing your results, you can click on the answer to see the stroke order animated. You'll be quizzed on the basic characters and words which illustrate their use.
Full hiragana and katakana alphabets
Kana by Hand will teach you how to write hiragana and katakana. It also includes around 250 basic Japanese words that show how the different characters combine to form words.
Spaced repetition for maximum retention
Kana by Hand uses spaced repetition to make it easy for you to learn and remember. Easy stuff is repeated more seldom, and the hard things come back more often. For the best effect, try to do your reviews every day.
Sync your devices
If you have both a tablet and a phone, you can set the same account name on them to get your progress data synced automatically. It also works as a backup of your data in case anything happens to your phone. That's why you need to accept some permissions to install it, so it can access the network and sync your device.
On your device, just go to Settings -> Accounts & sync -> Kana by Hand -> Account Settings and change the account name so it's the same on all your devices.
Credits
This package uses data from KanjiVG which is copyright Ulrich Apel and used according to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.
This package uses data from the EDICT and KANJIDIC dictionary files. These files are the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, and are used in conformance with the Group's licence.
My review
Review from
Reviews
4.2
320 total
5 191
4 68
3 27
2 7
1 27
A Google User
Hmm The app does not account for different styles of writing - the characters I learned in class are slightly different , but different to get a "wrong"
Tim Boot
Great app, may take up some time. I love this app! The handwriting recognition is a little hard sometimes but that only helps you to really get the characters right. A thing that irritates me is that you have to review lots of words and kana before you get to practice new ones.
A Google User
So far so good Is a little fussy about recognising strokes but I don't mind having to repeat as it is good practice! Will try with stylus and maybe find it easier:-)
Danyel B
Too sensitive, displays error too often. Other than that, very good for learning stroke order and also many useful words.
Daniel Tozaki
Great for learning writing I'm a beginner at self-learning Japanese. I was hoping to find an app that lets you practice writing Hiragana, and this is exactly what I was looking for. Writing characters helps my reading, and the app gives relevant vocabulary as well. You can't pick what characters or words to practice because the app decides what you need to work on. Some characters are tricky because of subtle details. Regardless, this app is polished and perfect as a learning supplement!
Ron Coleman
Excellent Only frustration is how it doesn't always recognize how a character is written (i.e. the character So or Zo) Otherwise it's an excellent app for learning with!
User reviews
Hmm The app does not account for different styles of writing - the characters I learned in class are slightly different , but different to get a "wrong"
So far so good Is a little fussy about recognising strokes but I don't mind having to repeat as it is good practice! Will try with stylus and maybe find it easier:-)
Great for learning writing I'm a beginner at self-learning Japanese. I was hoping to find an app that lets you practice writing Hiragana, and this is exactly what I was looking for. Writing characters helps my reading, and the app gives relevant vocabulary as well. You can't pick what characters or words to practice because the app decides what you need to work on. Some characters are tricky because of subtle details. Regardless, this app is polished and perfect as a learning supplement!
Almost great This helped me a lot when needing a beginner refresh! Poor recognition of certain characters is super irritating, though. えmust be fixed. It always gives me a problem!! One can form it perfectly and get it marked wrong. Then, sometimes doing a terrible job of it, it is recognized as correct!
Great app! I've downloaded loads of app that teaches japanese characters but this one is the best! it teaches you in a simple way and you learn gradually. this really helps me! big thanks to the creator! i love you already.xD
Perfect! For those who have recently completed RTK, I cannot recommend this android application enough. Used alongside your grammar studies (Tae Kim, DoBJG, JA Sensei; whatever you happen to choose), this app not only helps you read and produce kana quickly and autonomically, but it enforces the readings of 250 basic Japanese words with its interactive and very engaging interface. It's addictive; I've been on it for hours and I've already developed a habit of using mnemonics to remember vocabulary readings. The single most important factor to encourage a smooth flow of information into long term memory is momentary interest. Others who are thinking of what to do after RTK: you've unwittingly stumbled across an indispensable resource. I would also recommend the Conjugation Japanese application and the offline JED (Japanese English Dictionary) to be used parallel to this. Not to mention AnkiDroid. :)
nice and helpful (best app) But please fix the character recognition of ﾞne - ねﾞ. My accuracy rate for ne is very low considering my careful writing. I could not make it pass how I try to write it. For other character it works just fine. Not sure is it just me facing the problem. I would have given it 5 star but this ね is holding me behind. Please fix the character recogtion. I will upgrade the star to 5 star next minute. Thanks. My device is Toshiba 7 inch tablet.
Love it! I'm just starting out in learnng japanese and needed help both memorizing and writing. Decided to use this to supplement my lessons. I find it soooooooooo helpful in memorizing and writing the words. I love it. Not sure it there's a sound option, that would be helpful in my pronunciation and memorization.
Almost excellent Having bizarre issues after upgrading to a Note 3, which I assumed this would be perfect for - repeated, inconsistent refusals to recognise correct responses, with no obvious logic to it. A fix would be much appreciated, as this was great on my old S2...
Best kana learning app This app is great for learning and most importantly remembering the kana. It is also amazing because it uses the kana in words and helps you learn those as well.
Very good Nice straightforward and simple program. The SRS (spaced repetition system) is exactly what I'm looking for in a language program to teach new items then review them as needed. But dang can the shape detection be picky. Sometimes I make a beautiful kana that gets counted wrong even though it nearly traces the example. (そ, I'm looking at you...) Still, recommended, and the vocab practice is a plus.
Amazing! Btw... I love how this app teaches but despite many reports of it being too hard I think it goes to easy on me. I want it to take longer before it stops quizing on a new sign. That way I would remember it better instead of forgetting as soon as the repetition stops
Good, but the words are to much This app is actually one of the best for learning kana. But along with the kana it forces you to learn a ton of words, without giving you any context or mnemonic way to remember them. (So it's pretty much impossible. ) I'd rather learn the kana first and my vocabulary later. If it had an option to disable the words, it would get 5 stars from me.
Handwriting not there yet So the recognition of handwriting is nowhere near where it should be. I do not follow the textbooks to the pixel anymore and have developed a personal style just like any Japanese person would have. As a result, almost everything I write is considered wrong. Even when using my Galaxy Note with S Pen.
Average. Ok as a quiz, but not that great as a study tool. If you are not already familiar with the kana then this wool not be very useful to you.
Can't learn all characters Update: still too manu words before new characters. I just had to learn 43 (!!) words before I got a new character "nu". I just want to learn all the hiragana then work on katakana! Wish I could turn off words. It's still an awesome app for learning the characters, but will I ever get to learn the last one?? I've had this over a year now.
Easy to use! The only thing I would like is a menu option for quick selections and a back option to try a character again if I accidentally continued without meaning to. Maybe even an option to listen to pronounciation if a word is completed satisfactorily. Other than that, I like how straightforward it is.
Great app but Se and Ze are always counted as wrong no matter how perfect I write them.
Nice concept The concept is good, but it keeps saying me the character I write are wrong, even when they are exactly as his ones... frustraiting. E hiragana is impossible to write right, for exemple!
Many people have mentioned the difficulty with recognition, but my biggest frustration is different. I want to practice tracing the stroke order with my stylus or finger to get a feel for writing it, but every time you touch the image the animation restarts, making that almost impossible. Please give us some option for veiwing a static image too. Otherwise this is an almost perfect app.
Best of them all! I was already able to read kana but kept confusing some of them. The hand recognition works real good, even my handwriting is very lousy.
Awesome Awesome app for learning to read and write Japanese, and extend your vocabuary too.
Poor recognition Worked better on my Note 2... but on the Note 4 doesn't work as well. Because of the unknown and unconfigurable recognition system you can easily get stuck with no idea why and no way to progress. I have ended up focussing more on satisfying the program than actually learning Japanese. The developer seems to be no longer developing this or at least their pages seems to have stagnated and the Email I sent has had no reply. So I reduce my score even further.
I like Writing is smooth. How about writing words too, not just single kanas？
Review deleted
What's New
1.3.1 - Improve recognition on devices with flaky touch screens (looking at you, Samsung Galaxy SII...)
1.3.0 - Better use of larger screens on tablets etc.
- Various fixes and improvements.
1.2.0 - Add sync between devices. If you have multiple devices you can set the same account name to sync your progress between them. Furthermore, any corrections to the translations will be updated automatically. To make this possible the new permissions are required.
Additional information
Updated
March 27, 2012
Size
323k
Installs
10,000 - 50,000
Current Version
1.3.1
Requires Android
2.1 and up
Content Rating
Unrated
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Olof Sjöbergh
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