You Can Kana - Learn Japanese Hiragana & Katakana

Will this gamified version of Japanese language learning teach you to translate anime and hentai instead of having to rely on inconsistent and often incorrect translation efforts from arrogant westerners with agendas? Well, probably not. But perhaps it is a simple introduction to the basics of comprehending moon runes for those who are interested, as well as for those who have been learning it and who may want to test their knowledge. The video game format is a pretty great way for the uninitiated to learn, and I think if most of my schooling was delivered as a video game experience, I'd probably have actually bothered to graduate high-school and not slept in every class. Especially when they mandatorily enrolled everybody into Spanish in elementary school and then when I had to choose a language elective in secondary school. We don't learn other languages as Americans; people learn our language for when they inevitably travel to New York City on vacation because they believed the propaganda that it is heaven and not just a big, overpopulated and badly managed dump. [i]You Can Kana[/i] gives you some brief lessons on both forms of kana(?) that are Hiragana and Katakana as two separate 'campaigns.' The video game is otherwise rather short with not much else to offer, but that's not really the point of it. In a way, it's more so an application/tool that combines some traditional elements of a video game to create an environment for digital learning, or to help start your journey where you evolve into something more complex, but for the sake of simplicity, I'll just honor it as a video game regardless. There are just under 200 different modules to play through and what you'll see in the screenshots is pretty much what you'll see in the entire game, and there's four different lesson plans between learning, reviewing your learning, testing your accumulated knowledge, and then the challenge mode which is where you are timed and expected to apply your learned knowledge. The game has you match symbols with the letter it represents, trace the symbols to practice accuracy, and there's even audio for pronunciation examples, etc. As somebody who has 'chicken scratch' handwriting in real life where it is not at all legible, I'm glad I don't have to write in these specialized characters to communicate because it would be a mess on paper. I feel like this video game could have received continual updates from its developer(s) to continue the lessons, such as introducing mnemonics, offering more writing practice or a sort of "free play" mode where you just practice with random strings or something, but it's otherwise worth the price for those who need additional practice for their studies or want somewhere to start. For myself, I'll likely not retain what I learned here after 24 hours as I aimed for 100% completion and nothing more, but that's more of a personal problem and nothing with the game itself.

[b]TLDR:[/b] Fun for casually matching Hiragana and Katakana with romaji, but not a proper language-learning tool. Only shows printed forms, omits stroke order and handwriting differences, and 'teaches' characters in a questionable order. Use it for recognition practice, [u]not[/u] actual learning. [b]=============================[/b] Okay, so first and foremost, I [b]STRONGLY DO NOT[/b] think this should be used to learn the language in a meaningful capacity. I like it [i]simply[/i] for the sake of practicing matching characters with their romaji. It’s fun to just kind of mess around with. As a supplementary tool, or something to casually reinforce recognition, it works fine. The issue is when it’s treated as anything more than that. All this game does is [u][i]try[/i][/u] to teach Hiragana and Katakana characters and their romaji counterparts. No Kanji. There are no explanations of the what, when, where, or why; only the characters and their romaji. It’s just a matching game, more or less. That can [i]feel[/i] like learning, especially to beginners, but recognition alone is not understanding, and this game never bridges that gap. Now here’s the main issue I have with calling it a “learning” game. When accessing new characters, it shows the way they should be written out, so you’d think it would actually show you how it’s done, right? But nope. Not entirely, at least. For example, [b]き[/b] is often written with separated strokes when handwritten, but the game doesn’t mention this [i]anywhere[/i], to my knowledge. All the characters you are taught to write are the standard printed forms, with no explanation that handwritten forms can commonly differ. This is pretty basic textbook knowledge, and it's completely omitted. That matters, because beginners will get confused later when real handwriting doesn’t look like what they were shown here. I also generally disagree with the order in which the characters are fed to the player. I don’t really understand the decision to introduce characters like [b]か (ka)[/b] immediately followed by [b]が (ga)[/b], and so on. Typically, the base characters are taught first, with voiced versions introduced later as variations, and the game never explains that relationship. I’d imagine this just makes beginners think they’re their own independent characters. It's up to personal preference, I suppose, but still, order [i]does[/i] affect how patterns are recognized and remembered, and the game doesn’t do much to justify or explain its approach. And, like I said, this shouldn’t be used to learn the language anyway. Worth noting, my sister ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hates this game with a passion for the same reasons listed above. She just sees it as more egregious than I do. I think the difference in opinion is that I see what the purpose [i]should[/i] be, while she’s taking it literally as a learning game. Judging it strictly as the learning game it advertises itself as, I pretty much have to agree.

[h2] You Can Kana - Learn Japanese Hiragana & Katakana[/h2] This is honestly the best tool to learn Hiragana & Katakana. I tried Duolingo but I was just bad at remembering what I was learning, I thought maybe it's because of my dyslexia, but what I needed really was repetition of Hiragana & Katakana which you can't do on Duolingo. This ''game'' helped me so much please make you can Kanji ! Wish me luck learning my 4th language >.< !

The game wants to teach you kana it's own way, which is unfortunately very annoying, and makes it very hard to use differently. You have to trace kana with your cursor multiple times, without any actual checks. It does not teach you the kana, just how to move cursor on predefined lines. There is option for 'skip' test, which runs a test. The test takes quite a lot of time, and is again very annoying if you don't know all the kana and want to just skip behind the kana tracing. There is no option to practice specific characters, you have to practice all you have learned until the point, meaning the later the character is, the less likely you are to be able to practice it.

I thought it would take WEEKS to lock in my kana but this game made it so fun, rewarding, and confidence inspiring and I polished it out in three days (with continued practice it will hopefully last). This is such a good tool and is beyond worth it. I was so surprised at how effective it was. I'd recommend saying each kana out loud when you're in the learning phase, it really locks it in, especially while you're doing the handwriting portion. OUTSTANDING GAME/TOOL 10/10!!

YEY, I can read Hiragana and Katakana totally. This game is recommended to you guys who are beginners and want to learn the Japanese Language. 10/10

Best game to learn Hiragana and Katakana, you learn to write the strokes correctly and hear the sounds, got practices, I like it!

Great game for learning Hiragana and Katakana. If you're new to Japanese learning or you just want to get faster at reading characters, I can't recommend this game highly enough. There's not much to it. You learn to write the character a few times, then you play a timed typing game where you read the words on the screen and type them as quickly as possible. The game is well paced and organized. If you finish the game, which shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 hours at most, you will be able to read Japanese. You won't know what any of the words mean, but that is another hurdle for another game.

Simple, fun and cozy. Learning Hiragana and Katakana here is very very very simple and fun.

Does a decent job of making something that is inherently boring (ramming symbols in your head) fun. Well done game makers!