What is Katakana, and how does the drill work?
Katakana is the second Japanese syllabary — the same sounds as hiragana, written with angular characters. Japanese uses it for loanwords and foreign names (コーヒー kōhī, "coffee"), onomatopoeia and emphasis. Menus, storefronts and product names are full of it, which makes katakana the fastest route to reading real words in the wild: sound a word out and you often already know it.
Start on the Chart tab and tick the character groups you want to practice, then switch to Practice: a character appears, you type its romanized sound — ka, shi, kyo — and the drill advances the moment you get it right. Miss one and you see the answer immediately; the same character comes back a few cards later until it sticks.
Tick the groups you want to practice, then switch to Practice.
Frequently asked questions
Should I learn katakana before or after hiragana?
Learn hiragana first — it carries Japanese grammar and is what beginner materials are written in. Katakana is the natural second step, and it usually goes faster because you already know the sound system: you are re-mapping the same 46 sounds onto new shapes. Many characters even resemble their hiragana siblings (か/カ, や/ヤ, も/モ).
Which romanization does the drill accept?
Hepburn is the primary system (shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji), because it best matches English spelling habits. Common Kunrei-shiki and keyboard-input alternates are accepted too — si for シ, ti for チ, tu for ツ, hu for フ, zi for ジ, sya for シャ — plus nn for ン, matching how you type it with a Japanese IME.
What about ヴ and combinations like ファ or ティ?
Those are extended katakana — modern additions used to spell foreign sounds that classical Japanese lacks (v, fa, ti…). They are worth meeting later, but they are not part of the core syllabary, so this drill covers the standard set: once that is automatic, the extended combinations read themselves.
Does the drill save my progress?
Your character-group selection is saved in your browser (no account needed), so the drill opens where you left off. The session stats — seen, correct, accuracy, streak — deliberately reset each visit: the drill is about instant recall today, not long-term statistics.