Thanks to all for posting the links here. I was looking for a good site to help learn Hiragana, and found some good ones here.
In exchange for your help, I thought I would post a "write-up" of all the learn Hiragana sites listed here, to save others the time of looking through all the posts and trying the different ones. It's quite possible I missed some, if you know of one that is good and I missed, please let me know.
Most are pretty similar: it presents a Hiragana letter, you need to provide the correct Romanji
The way they differ is:
- do you need to type in the Romanji, click on one of several choice, or click on the table
- what it does when you get it wrong
- how flexible is it in selecting subset of kana to learn
- Does it also do Katakana? Does it also do Romanji -> kana in addition to kana -> Romanji?
After playing with these for a while, my personal preferences are as follows.
- Type in Romanji. When I need to click one of several choices I can usually eliminate some, which means i don't learn it as well. When I need to click on the kana table I start to learn by position, not letter.
- Ability to select subset of kana is a requirement. When just starting, trying to distinguish among ALL the hiragana (especially the ones that also include expanded hiragana) is just too much, and leads to frustration. So when starting, need one that lets me pick a reasonable number (e.g. 10-20). Once you know them all and just need to practice, this is less important.
- I like ones that just says "nope!" when wrong, and makes me work on the correct answer.
- Romanji -> kana is not very useful to me, as I'm focusing only on reading, not on writing. For others, however, this might be important.
The other thing to note is that by-and-large these are not games (as I define it), but more computer-aided instruction. So once you get familiar with Hiragana and/or Katakana, you might want to find something more interesting.
Also, as far as I can tell, none of these take past correct/incorrect into account when picking the next letter. That is, whether you got a given letter wrong the last 10 times or correct the last 10 times, the probability of getting that letter is the same. I see room for improvement here.
Real Kana --
Hiragana and Katakana Practice — Real Kana
Format: need to entering romanji until you get it right
Pros:
- Lets you select any sub-set of the Hiragana and/or Katakana. Only one that does both at the same time.
- Has 7 typefaces, lets you select one or multiple of them. I think this is a very useful feature, as if I get used to only one font it's hard to read other (e.g. real world) kana
- If you mouse over the letter it shows you the answer, which you then need to enter.
Cons:
- Can press enter to go to the next letter, but does not show you the correct letter, so you yon't really learn it
- Does not do Romanji -> Kana
Conclusion: This is the one I used, due primarily to the flexibility in selecty sub-sets of the Hiragana to practice.
KanaSensei
KanaSensei
Format: java applet. Need to click on table
Pros
- Lets you select any subset of Hiragana or Katakana, but not both.
- Does romanji -> kana or kana -> romanji
- After a couple of wrong clicks, it shows correct one and waits for you to click it. This is the best design I've seen for when you don't really know a letter
Cons
- Did not work for me! The Kana did not show up. [Showed up elsewhere]
Conclusion: This one looks promising, if you prefer to click rather than type in, but it did not work for me so I can't comment much
Hiragana and katakana drill, learn kana fast and easy!
Format: shows Kana, need to type Romanji
Pros:
- has "show me the answer" button
- Can select Hiragana in parts, or Katakana in parts. But not able to select *any* subset like Real Kana does
- Only one that can also give multiple characters (not sure how useful this is)
Conclusion: Also looks good, but as the selection of which kana to show is not as flexible as Real Kana, I used that one instead
KanaQuest --
KanaQuest.com - Hiragana and Katakana practice
Format: shows kana, need to click on one of 4 buttons.
Pros:
- Says can do subset of kana, but need to register to do that, and I didn't bother.
- Also can select font if you register
Conclusion: Didn't bother to register so not sure how complete it is
The Kanji Game --
https://www.msu.edu/~lakejess/Kana_Page.html?bg=1
While it's called "The Kanji Game", it's not a game, and it doesn't teach Kanji. Oh well, zero-for-two isn't bad :-)
Format: shows letter, need to press one of 8 buttons. If wrong, correct one flashes for about 1 second.
Pros:
- Also does English to Kana
Conclusion: not useful to me. When wrong, it shows the correct answer for such a short period of time that I don't learn much.
Learn Hiragana Flash-card Game --
Learn Hiragana Flash-card Game
Format: enter kanji until until you get it right
Pros
- Has a good hiragana chart
Cons
- no show me
- Only does all basic hiragana (which IMHO is too much to learn all at once)
- Does not do advanced Hiragana
Conclusion: Not bad, but no real reason to use. I do like the hiragana chart, and I often keep it open for reference while using other sites.
Oaxoa Blog
This one is more of a game, and is not very good for learning. Need to see how many you can get right in 60 seconds. Does not tell you correct answer. Gives you Hiragana, need to click correct romanji from choice of 6