Hiragana quiz and practice test

How does the hiragana quiz work?

Pick a set, a direction and a way to answer, then press Start. The quiz asks every kana in the set once, in random order. Kana to sound shows a hiragana and asks how it is read, Sound to kana gives the sound and asks for the hiragana, and Both alternates between the two.

You can tap one of four answers or type the sound in rōmaji. The wrong answers come from the set you picked, so a quiz on the basics never offers ぎゃ as a choice. A typed answer checks itself as soon as it is a whole sound, so you only press Enter after n, which could still become na or ni. The quiz shows Hepburn spellings, and it also accepts the Kunrei ones (si, ti, tu, hu, zi) with a note. Sound to kana questions are always answered by tapping, because a Japanese keyboard would spell the kana for you.

When you miss, the quiz shows the right sound and a hint to remember it by, and the kana comes back before the end of the run. Only your first answer counts toward the score. The second try is practice.

What does the result show?

The result lays the set out in chart order, with every kana you missed marked in it. Under the chart are the pairs you mixed up most, up to three, such as ぬ and め. A pair is counted in both directions: answering me for ぬ and nu for め is the same pair, twice. Then a line says how many of the kana you answered come back later today, tomorrow, or further out.

When does a missed kana come back?

The quiz keeps every kana in one of six boxes, like the Leitner system for flashcards that Sebastian Leitner described in 1972. A right answer moves a kana up one box and a miss moves it down two. The higher the box, the longer the wait before the kana is due again.

A kana climbs at most one box a day, except out of box 0, so three quizzes in one day move it no faster than one. The cap is deliberate: before it, a kana could go from never seen to mastered inside ten minutes, which measured recognition in the moment and not memory. A miss has no such limit.

Your answers stay in this browser, with no account. Yomikana, Yomimaru's free kana course, reads the same record, so its reviews include whatever you missed here.

Printable hiragana test

For practice on paper, the printable hiragana test (PDF) has four pages. The first two list all 104 hiragana in a shuffled order, each with a line for its rōmaji. The third gives the 46 basic sounds to write in hiragana. The last page has the answers.

Hiragana reading practice: from kana to words

A quiz checks one kana at a time. Reading means doing it inside words, where one mark changes the word: かき (kaki, persimmon) and かぎ (kagi, key) differ by two small strokes. The guide to dakuten, handakuten and small っ covers those marks. Hiragana is one of two kana scripts, and the difference between hiragana and katakana explains when each is used. When hiragana is solid, the katakana quiz tests the other script the same way, with 30 loanwords to read after it. Once single kana come without effort, move on to sentences: Yomimaru's short Japanese stories for beginners are free to read, with furigana over the kanji.