A little Japanese.
A whole new world.
Start reading Japanese today. One character, one lesson, one breakthrough at a time.
Your first Japanese lessons are on us.
Experience clear explanations, guided practice, and lessons that build your confidence from day one. No payment needed.
Your Japanese journey starts here.
Build a strong foundation in Japanese with clear explanations, guided practice, and lessons that grow with you. Start learning for free, at your own pace.
From first kana through N4 topics.
Keep the journey going.
Begin for free. Open the local curriculum edition to study beginner Japanese through N4 topics.
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Every character you learn is a step forward.
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๐ฑ A little extra practice
Make Japanese part of your day.
MiraKana teaches the foundations. Immersion helps you notice them in real life. Try a slice-of-life anime with Japanese subtitles, a beginner-friendly Japanese podcast, Japanese social media, or a manga you enjoy. Understanding a few familiar words is a good start. For kanji and vocabulary, Anki is a useful optional spaced-repetition companion: review a few cards regularly, then recognize those words in context.
Course progress
Progress is saved on this device only. Review practice does not replace future spaced-repetition features.
Learn Japanese with understanding, not guesswork.
MiraKana is a guided Japanese learning platform for people starting from zero. We believe learning a language should feel like taking a thoughtfully taught class: first you understand something, then you practice it, then you show you can use it on your own.
Our name is a Japanese-inspired brand name, not a dictionary word. MiraKana's mission is to make the journey from your first Japanese sounds to confident beginner-level comprehension clear, structured, and rewarding. We are building toward the skills covered by JLPT N5, with a bridge into introductory N4 material.
A course, not a guessing game.
Many beginners can recognize an answer when it appears in a familiar order, but struggle when the same character appears in a real word. MiraKana is designed to avoid that trap. Every new topic starts with an explanation and examples. Independent questions come later, and their order is mixed so you must recognize what you learned rather than follow a pattern.
Understand the lesson
Start with a teacher-style explanation: what the sound, character, or grammar pattern means, how it works, and what makes it different. For example, before practicing ใ, you learn why the S row contains shi rather than a simple si.
Study real examples
See new characters and their readings together before answering questions. Begin with hiragana, build a reliable foundation, and only then move to katakana. The course also introduces common beginner kanji, vocabulary, grammar, and connected reading. Anki is an optional tool for remembering kanji and vocabulary between lessons.
Practice one answer at a time
Type responses into a separate field for each prompt. Early exercises focus on recently taught material; cumulative checkpoints bring back older characters and mix them with new ones. You can revisit the teaching material whenever you need to.
Earn your next lesson
Check your answers and see what needs correction. Practice checkpoints require 100% correct answers before the next lesson unlocks. Simply reading a teaching page does not count as independently mastering its material.
Revisit and retain
Later reviews mix previously taught material so recognition holds up outside a predictable row. Our longer-term plan includes more targeted remediation and delayed reviews to distinguish passing today from remembering next week.
From first characters to N4 study.
Learn the vowel sounds, all basic hiragana, voiced sounds, blended sounds, and small characters. Then work through katakana and borrowed-word reading.
The local course introduces practical vocabulary, particles, verb and adjective forms, kanji in words, and connected reading.
Continue with plain forms, conditionals, longer notices, and listening tasks. The course assessments measure performance on taught material.
What does โmasteryโ mean? In the current prototype, it means passing a lesson checkpoint with every answer correct. That's a meaningful progression rule, but not a guarantee of long-term retention or JLPT exam success. Full N5 readiness will require broader vocabulary, grammar, reading, listening, and comprehensive assessments. MiraKana is independent and is not affiliated with the JLPT organizers.
Make immersion part of your routine.
MiraKana provides the structure: what to learn, how it works, and when to test yourself. Real Japanese media gives those lessons context. We recommend pairing your coursework with regular exposure to Japanese you genuinely enjoy. You do not need to understand every word. Start by noticing familiar sounds, characters, and expressions; understanding grows as you learn.
Listen for everyday speech and familiar expressions. Try Japanese subtitles instead of English subtitles when you can; pause or replay scenes as needed.
Choose beginner-friendly Japanese podcasts first. Revisit short episodes and gradually work toward natural-speed conversations.
Follow Japanese creators whose interests match yours. Short clips, captions, and comments give you small, repeatable moments of exposure.
Read Japanese manga, posts, or simple stories. Recognize kana and words you've studied without expecting to translate every sentence.
How to combine both: Study a MiraKana lesson, spend 10โ20 minutes with Japanese media, and jot down one or two things you recognized. Return to your lessons and reviews for structured progress. Immersion supports the course; it doesn't replace independent checkpoints. Listening practice comes from real-world materials rather than a built-in audio player.
Try the teaching style for yourself.
Start with the free introductory course: an explanation of Japanese sounds, followed by guided hiragana lessons through the S row and their checkpoints. You'll see how MiraKana teaches before asking you to answer anything. The next chapters continue into the rest of hiragana and katakana.
Study at your own pace. The prototype saves your progress in this browser on this device only; it does not yet support accounts or cross-device sync.
Free to begin. Built to grow.
Our intended offering is a $29 one-time unlock for the completed N5 course, with no subscription for that course. Checkout is not live. The prototype currently demonstrates kana instruction and early beginner material and a new six-unit N5 grammar foundations preview; the complete N5 curriculum, accounts, reliable cloud progress, and N4 bridge are still in development. We recommend external listening immersion instead of a built-in audio library. The preview beyond the free course is for testing, not a finished paid product.