Lessons
Lesson catalogue
Find the right lesson for your next step. Build reading confidence one small win at a time.
Start Here: Sounds, Script, and Sentence Order
Getting started
Meet the three scripts, the sound-based nature of kana, and the basic Japanese sentence pattern used in beginner reading.
Hiragana I: あ to こ
Kana & script
Learn the five vowel kana and the か row so you can start sounding out short hiragana words.
Hiragana II: さ to と
Kana & script
Add the さ and た rows and get comfortable with the important sounds し, ち, and つ.
Hiragana III: な to ん
Kana & script
Finish the basic hiragana chart and learn how to read the special kana ん in short words.
Hiragana Extras: Dakuten, Handakuten, Small Kana
Kana & script
Learn voiced sounds, p-sounds, contracted sounds, and the small っ so you can read more common everyday words.
Katakana I: Core Symbols
Kana & script
Begin katakana by learning the core symbols and sounding out short everyday loanwords.
Katakana II: Loanwords and Long Vowels
Kana & script
Build katakana fluency with the long vowel mark ー and common everyday loanwords.
Reading Particles and Word Boundaries
Kana & script
Use particles to find word boundaries and read short beginner sentences in chunks.
です: Simple Statements
Kana & script
Learn how です ends a polite statement and ties short beginner sentences together.
Questions with か
Kana & script
Turn short statements into polite yes/no questions by adding か at the end.
これ・それ・あれ
Kana & script
Learn the standalone words for this, that, and that over there, and read them by speaker distance.
この・その・あの
Kana & script
Use this, that, and that over there before a noun, and keep them separate from これ, それ, and あれ.