Tokkun · special training

特訓 (tokkun) means "special training."

In typical Japanese text, katakana doesn't come up as often as hiragana and kanji. It's only about 6% of what you read, so you it's difficult to get enough practice reading katakana.

This app quizzes you on the 1000 most common katakana words. A word is displayed and you're supposed to type the reading. The app keeps track of which characters you have trouble with, the pairs you mix up, like シ and ツ or ソ and ン, and shows you those more often so that you improve.

The words are the 1000 most common katakana terms by jpdb frequency. Readings and definitions come from JMdict.

The streak

When you're not on a streak, the seal in the corner reads 特訓. Get one right and it starts working through 守しゅ破は離り, the traditional martial-arts philosophy of mastery: obey the form, break the form, leave the form. From there a new seal lands every ten in a row: 破は at ten, 離り at twenty, then deepening states up to 極きわみ (the pinnacle) at 150. Does drilling katakana make you a master of anything? Not really. But the seal looks cool.

Who makes it

Tokkun is made by two engineers. We built it for ourselves to get some extra katakana reading practice.