The Japanese word game
How much Japanese do you understand? How much can you produce?
Tangoya measures both vocabularies while you play, and grows them. You read a word, hear it, or type it into a sentence. Every answer moves one of four skills, the questions follow your level, and the score is a count of words: how many you know, and in which way.
Free, in your browser.
No sign-up. First question in seconds.
One of each kind of question: read it, hear it, type it. Sound on for the second.
Your numbers
Two numbers, four skills
Most people understand far more than they can produce, and one score hides the gap. Tangoya shows both, as counts of words. Understanding splits into reading and listening, producing into recalling a word and writing its kanji.
The solid part of each bar is words you have proven in the app. The hatched part is estimated from your level, a chess-style rating that moves with every answer to a new word.
On day one the numbers are question marks. The first set asks about ten of each kind of question, starting easy, and measures all four skills. There is no level to pick.
An example learner.
How it plays
Three kinds of question, each a different way of knowing a word
Every new word is dealt to one of them, and its answer moves the skill it tests. Don’t like one kind, or can’t listen right now? Skip it once, for today, or until you turn it back on.
Moves Read
Read: see the word, pick its reading and its meaning
No furigana, and both parts must be right. The three wrong options are picked to tempt someone who doesn’t know the word and never to trap someone who does: look-alike kanji, sound-alikes, neighbours that share a verb.
Moves Listen, then Write
Listen: hear the word alone, then pick its kanji in a sentence
First only the sound, and you pick the meaning. Then its sentence plays, at normal speed or slower, and you pick how the word is written. The two steps are marked separately, so someone who grew up hearing Japanese sees exactly that: Listen high, Write low.
Moves Recall
Recall: the English, and a sentence with a gap. Type the word
In kana or kanji; romaji turns into kana as you type. The gap is the whole word as it is inflected in the sentence. A near-synonym that also fits gets a gentle “close, another word?” and not a miss.
Every answer ends in a sentence
After you answer you get the word’s reading and pitch accent, its full definition, and an example sentence with furigana and audio at two speeds. Miss, and you also learn the word you fell for.
Practice without a backlog
Only your first meeting with a word moves your numbers, which keeps them honest. After that the word is practice: it comes back on a memory schedule, in the skill you missed, with a daily cap and catch-up days after a break. No backlog total is ever shown.
Phone and laptop, one history
Everything you do is kept as a small entry, and your devices exchange entries. Play on the train and at your desk and the two merge; neither overwrites the other, offline or not.
Four skills, six kinds of word
Six kinds of word, each with its own level
Knowing your kanji compounds says little about your onomatopoeia. Every answer to a new word moves one skill and one kind of word, and whichever the app is less sure of moves more. From those ten levels it can work out any pairing, such as how many 熟語 you can recall, and lean the day’s set toward the widest gap.
Today leans toward Recall. You understand far more 熟語 than you can bring to mind.
A little every day
Three minutes a day, or as long as you like
Each day the app picks a kind of word and leans the set toward your weakest skill in it: new words in all three kinds of question, then a few from before in the skill you missed. Finish it and you are done for the day. Keep going and the game never runs out.
- Look up any word for its reading, pitch accent, definition, sentence and audio.
- See your vocabulary by skill, then one skill by kind of word, with a twelve-week activity calendar.
- Follow friends and compare on a leaderboard for each kind of word.
- Play as a guest. Progress is saved on your device; an account backs it up and joins your devices.
The first question is already waiting
No level to choose and nothing to set up. Your first set measures all four skills.
Find your levelWorks in any modern browser, on a phone or a computer.