Kana Keys : A Comprehensive Course in Japanese Phonetic Writing is a mobile app soon to be released for iOS and Android.
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Kana Keys is the most powerful tool available today for mastering the Japanese phonetic scripts, hiragana and katakana (collectively known as kana). Designed as a self-guiding, step-by-step course, Kana Keys provides a thorough and meticulously curated curriculum for mastering the skills of reading, writing, and pronouncing over 230 distinct kana and kana combinations. Distinctively, this course also helps you master the gojuon collation system, an essential skill for navigating Japanese reference materials.
The app’s course of instruction begins with an illuminating introduction to Japanese phonetic writing and the nuances of using an alphabetical keyboard for Japanese text input. It then methodically teaches you every Japanese syllable in both hiragana and katakana. Reading and writing exercises introduce a selection of useful example words containing each kana, allowing you to learn the kana within the context of authentic Japanese. Conveniently, the vocabulary words incorporate kana progressively, using only the characters you have already learned. This makes the course both straightforward and effortlessly self-reinforcing.
Kana Keys includes a variety of powerful features, including a writing practice tool and automated drills that eliminate the task of designing your own review scheme, as well as built-in study schedules that make it easy to organize your studies according to your own preferred pace. Hundreds of flashcards present the English equivalents to useful Japanese words written in kana. Randomized drills use these cards to test your ability to write words in kana, or identify the readings and English equivalents of kana-based words. A variety of other relaxing activities improve your recognition speed and ensure that you can produce either hiragana or katakana as needed, without confusing them. Kana Keys ensures that you will be thoroughly prepared to meet the challenges of phonetic reading, writing, and collation in real-world Japanese.