Sumi: Learn Japanese

Sumi teaches Japanese the way a good textbook does, then gets out of the way. Every character is shown before it is asked about: the strokes in order, the sound, the meaning, and where the shape came from. Then, and only then, the question. No streaks to protect. No leagues. Miss a week and nothing is taken away: the queue waits, and the characters you were shakiest on come back first. かな · KANA, TAUGHT PROPERLY Twenty guided lessons across hiragana and katakana, five characters at a time. Animated stroke order, the sound, then a gentle check. What you learn returns on a spaced schedule. 漢字 · A KANJI LIBRARY YOU CAN ACTUALLY READ 2,384 characters, searchable and filterable by JLPT level, each with animated stroke order, readings and meanings. Every one of them now has a recorded reading you can play. 解字 · KANJI X-RAY Pull a character apart and see why it looks the way it does. 時 is 日 (day, sun) beside 寺, and 寺 is only there for its sound, じ. It lends that same sound to 持 and 侍. Once you can see which half means and which half sounds, you stop memorising and start reading. 文庫 · THE REFERENCE SHELF Kana charts with stroke order for every glyph. Radicals. Particles, phrases and counters. 5,686 words, many shown inside real sentences. Word families. A grammar reference. And a number reader that answers the question the textbooks skip: how do you actually say ¥3,600, or 4:30, or 九月八日? 文机 · THE DESK Build your own collections out of anything in the app, then study them. SOMETHING QUIETER Nine paper-and-ink themes. A seasonal wash that follows the twenty-four Japanese sekki, so the app looks slightly different in autumn than it did in spring. Japanese set in Zen Old Mincho, because the characters are worth typesetting properly. WORKS OFFLINE Lessons, reviews, the whole library and the audio all work with no connection. Progress is saved on your device, and you can start without making an account at all. Add an email only if you want your progress to follow you to another device. A NOTE ON ACCURACY Sumi's kana, kanji and stroke-order data come from open reference sources (KanjiVG and KANJIDIC2). The grammar explanations, reading passages, conversations and idioms have been through a native-speaker review. The generated example sentences have not been yet, and we would rather tell you that than imply otherwise. Sumi Pro is optional. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and can be managed or cancelled in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://studysumi.com/privacy