I decided to make a small tool to help me study for my Japanese kanji exams, you can find it at https://slashie.net/kanjidrill/ The way it works is, you upload a dictionary of kanji expressions including the kanji, the furigana, and the meaning, and then it’s going to shoot random questions at you until you master them.

I did pretty bad in my kanji test yesterday; my worse score was in the kanji readings section, no hanamaru for me this time.

Interestingly, I think that highlights a bit of a design issue in the drill app: when I was studying using it, most of the times I just couldn’t draw a kanji given a reading… it’s just too hard outright without any hints or support.

So I just added an optional multiple selection mode which, I believe, should help a lot with the first steps of learning, especially for the kanji to hiragana scenario.

When asked a question, you can now opt to select an answer, instead of having to draw or write it.

Will this work? next test in next week, so we’ll see!