日 日本語ゲーム

About

日本語ゲーム is a compendium of small Japanese-learning games covering JLPT N5 to N1, built by Joel Harvey for friends and colleagues. Free, invite-only, no ads.

Every round is eight questions. Score more than 65% and the next round is one level harder; under 35% and it is one level easier; in between you stay put. Your level follows you between sessions.

Kanji Snap is the exception: a kanji on the left, a meaning on the right, and you tap ✓ or ✗ against the clock — which sometimes runs fast. The run ends at your tenth mistake (or when you clear the board), and it is scored on the questions you reached, so the same 65% / 35% rule decides your next level.

Kanji Pairs is a board: thirty tiles, fifteen kanji words and their fifteen hiragana readings, shuffled. Tap a kanji and a reading to turn the pair over. Three wrong pairs close the board, and it is scored as pairs matched out of fifteen.

Kana Chain (かなチェーン) is a word ladder in kana: from a word you are given, each rung changes one kana and a new word appears, and you pick what it means from four choices. The word you land on starts the next rung, for eight rungs. Only readings with one clear meaning are used, drawn from your level first.

Kanji Chain (熟語チェーン) is kanji shiritori: an anchor kanji with an open slot before or after it, and four kanji of which only one makes a real two-kanji word. The kanji you place becomes the next anchor, for eight links. A miss shows the right kanji and the chain carries on, so it scores like every other round; the card also shows how far you got before the first miss. The words come from the vocabulary list, so a real compound the list lacks still counts as wrong — the JMdict import is what makes this game richer.

Guess the Onomatopoeia is about the sound words and manner words Japanese runs on — ワクワク, ザーザー, こっそり. Half the questions blank the word out of a sentence and ask which one fits; the other half show the word and ask what it means. The choices come from the same level and the same kind, so a sound word sits among sound words. After each answer the example sentence is shown in full.

Sentence Reorder gives three tries: a wrong build says how many tiles are out of place and leaves the line live to rearrange, and a sentence solved on a later try still counts towards your level, but scores half a point on the scoreboard. Words go into the gap you choose, and a placed word can be taken back with a tap.

Missing Particle and Pick the Definition give two tries: a wrong choice is greyed out and you choose again, and a right answer on the second go still counts towards your level, but scores half a point on the scoreboard. Missing Particle also has a hint that shows the sentence in kana, and it costs nothing.

Level test

Not sure where to start? The free level test needs no account: four questions a level from N5 up, half word meanings and half particles, stopping at the first level where you get fewer than three right. It suggests that level, and the level page highlights it once you've made a player.

Mastery

Each game keeps its own memory of what you know. An item answered right three times in a row is mastered and that game stops dealing it, coming back once after a month, then three, then a year, to check it stuck; one wrong answer and it is back in rotation. So the longer you play, the more of what you see is what you have not learned yet. The Progress page shows how far along each game and level you are.

Daily challenge

Every day three of the games are drawn, the same three for everyone. Finish a round of each and the day is done; do it day after day and your streak grows. Today's three are at the top of the Games page, the streaks are on the scoreboards, and the Progress page keeps your best streak and the last four weeks.

Practice

Flashcards, separate from the games and the scoreboards: pick a deck (verbs, adjectives, kanji words, kana words, two-kanji words, grammar, or the kana charts) and a level, tap to flip, and say whether you had it. A miss comes back a few cards later. Between sessions the deck remembers: what you missed comes back sooner, what you knew drifts out to longer intervals, so over the weeks you are testing what you actually know.

Tales

A reader for the Japanese Reader Collection folk tales (Clay & Yumi Boutwell, Kotoba Books): the Japanese with the book's running gloss when you hover or tap a word, the English for a sentence when you hover it (or all of it with "show English"), the book's grammar notes, and its recordings at normal and slow speed. Press play and the sentence being read lights up and scrolls into view. The recordings carry no timings, so at first the highlight follows an estimate from sentence length; anyone can run Sync once per recording — tap Mark as each sentence starts — and from then on everyone gets the real timing. The stories, glosses, notes and recordings are the publisher's and are here for the people who share this copy.

Monthly competition

The scoreboards run by calendar month (Japan time). Only rounds finished in the month count towards that month's ranking, and whoever is on top when the month closes is its winner — past winners are listed on the scoreboards page. All-time boards are there too. The ranking page can be printed, saved as a PDF, e-mailed or copied as text. You can keep your scores private (off every board, visible only to you) or delete them altogether, both from the scoreboards page.

Content

How to play: see the Help page. Forgotten your password? Ask Joel.