Android App
Himari Hiragana and katakana, taught without English
Learn to read Japanese without translating it.
You start from zero with hiragana. Each new word comes as a picture, a voice and the kana. No English appears inside a lesson, so you read the word in Japanese from the first day.
How the course is built
No translation
The drawing carries the meaning and the audio carries the sound. If you learn a kana word through its English gloss, you have to stop translating later. The course skips that step and never shows English inside a lesson.
Every word is spoken
Every kana and every word has its own audio clip. A lesson plays each syllable and then the whole word. Tap any word or character on screen to hear it again.
Review is scheduled for you
Each character and word you meet goes into a review schedule. The app decides when to show it again, based on how you answered before and how long it has been. You do not choose what to revise.
Coming back after a break
If you are away for a while, the app does not show you a backlog of hundreds of reviews. It gives you one session and moves the rest to later days. Nothing is marked as failed for having waited.
What it looks like
Tap any screen to see it full size.
What is in it
All 46 hiragana
Ten illustrated chapters, five words at a time. Each chapter ends with a manga page and a chapter seal. The whole course is free, with no time limit.
All 46 katakana
A second course set in its own city, with its own story and two guides of its own. Its words are loanwords you already know by sound, so the lesson is learning to read them.
A kanji course after hiragana
When you finish the hiragana course, a kanji course opens. It shows the character behind the words you have already read, and gives its reading inside the word you know. It never asks you to write a character from memory.
Typed on a Japanese keyboard
You type answers on your phone’s Japanese keyboard, so the practice carries over to any other app. If you type romaji instead, the app converts it to kana and grades it the same way.
Fully offline
There is no account, no login and no server. Every lesson, every audio clip and your progress are stored on your device.
Drawn for this app
Every background, character and word picture was made for Himari and appears nowhere else.
What is free and what is paid
Hiragana is free
All ten chapters, all 46 characters, the reviews, the kanji course and every audio clip. There is no trial period and no time limit.
Katakana is one purchase
The first chapter is free. The remaining chapters are unlocked by a single one-time purchase. There is no subscription and nothing else to buy.
Read your first word today
The first word is two characters long. You see a drawing, you hear the word, and you read it in Japanese.
An app by Codoha Ltd.
com.codoha.himari