I am so happy I live in an age where I can use the internet to study Japanese–there are so many great tools out there!  Here’s one I discovered just yesterday:  Read the Kanji.

It’s a flashcard website that tests your knowledge of kanji readings.  Its beauty is in its simplicity–no complicated preferences, no wading through extensive vocab selections.  Simply choose what JLPT level you’d like to study and have at it.  Each card is short and easy to complete so I find myself wanting to do “just one more”.  They’re flashcard potato chips.

If you register (for free!) on the site you also get access to stats about what kanji you’ve studied and how well you know them.

Each time you correctly read a compound the kanji in it are added to this chart.  The more times you answer it right the greener it gets.  For a visual person like me it’s an awesome way to get a grasp on how many kanji I’ve studied and how much further I have to go.  There are also stats broken out for each JLPT level, which is handy for all of us studying for the test.

The only complaint I have so far is that the program doesn’t recognize that there are two correct readings for some kanji.  七、the number seven, can be read both shichi and nana.  I guessed the former but the program wanted the latter.  Ditto with 四、the number four, with readings shi and yon.  Getting those cards right isn’t a matter of knowledge as much as it is luck.

I see myself using this in addition to the awesome Anki flashcard program which I’ll cover in a later post.  While Anki is my bread and butter Read the Kanji is most definitely my dessert.