# Kana - Hiragana and Katakana — user reviews > 816 indexed App Store user reviews of Kana by App to Learn Pte. Ltd., rated 4.80/5 from 12,780 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kana-hiragana-and-katakana/id1454200955/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kana-hiragana-and-katakana/id1454200955.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 11,440 · 4★ 895 · 3★ 253 · 2★ 75 · 1★ 117 ## What do users think of Kana? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Effective for learning hiragana and katakana - 🚀 Engaging and efficient learning experience - 📊 Comprehensive statistics and progress tracking - 🎨 Clean and intuitive user interface - 💰 Completely free with no ads or in-app purchases - 🎓 Helpful for both beginners and intermediate learners **Cons** - 🐛 Inconsistent character recognition in writing mode - 🤖 Robotic pronunciation audio - 🔍 Difficulty selecting multiple character groups for practice **Commonly reported bugs** - App crashes during long practice sessions - Timeout issues when saving custom character lists **Most requested features** - Add stroke order guides for writing practice - Implement full-word practice exercises - Allow syncing progress across devices - Provide guided practice mode for self-learning - Add support for extended katakana characters ## Newest reviews (19 of 816) ### 2/5 — Stop asking me to review *2026-08-24, version 2.13.1* I just got the app! I will re-review once i have used it more. But it keeps interrupting me asking for a review when i dont even have an hours worth of use yet ### 2/5 — Recognition is faulty *2026-08-24, version 2.13.1* Most of the 46 basic hiragana work, but literally everything else refuses to register. I’ve copied the stroke order, size, length, everything, but nothing works. It makes practicing a pain instead of enjoyable. ### 5/5 — No ads *2026-08-21, version 2.13.1* Best app out there to learn Kana. No ads, and you have the entire table for both Hiragana and Katakana. You can see the stroke order, draw it yourself, hear the sound, and just drill! User friendly, clean aesthetic. Very recommended. ### 5/5 — Love setup *2026-08-21, version 2.13.1* I love that I can practice writing in both hiragana and katakana. As a beginner the customized drills I can make come in really handy and help with memorization. ### 5/5 — Great *2026-08-20, version 2.13.1* This is literally all you need for a beginner. It is easy to use and set up. Totally free and doesn’t send you bunch of notifications ### 5/5 — Very simple, yet useful *2026-08-19, version 2.13.1* As someone who has a hard time differentiating kana, this is very useful to my memory and my handwriting ### 5/5 — Great supplement to Genki *2026-08-18, version 2.13.1* Trying to get started in learning Japanese, I was searching for flash cards to learn Hiragana and Katakana. This is filling that need with features that go beyond flash cards. I tried two others. This is the best. And free! ### 3/5 — Probably a good app but annoying intro *2026-08-18, version 2.13.1* I kid you not, immediately after the onboarding slides when I was inside the app for 0 seconds, it hit me with asking for a star rating. I closed that, ready to poke around, and on the bottom of the home screen there's constantly text cycling to beg for reviews (it's not even static so you can't ignore it. constant cycling). I'm pretty sure the app was made with love and it'll be great and stuff, but here's your dang rating – 2 stars off for leading with frustrating UX. ### 5/5 — Very good *2026-08-18, version 2.13.1* I only do the hard mode and it’s perfect. Learning little by little. ### 5/5 — Very nice *2026-08-09* I tried lots of apps this is very good ### 5/5 — Very helpful *2026-08-09, version 2.13.1* Great app ### 5/5 — An amazing app *2026-08-08* It is a good way to practice kana🫶🫶🫶 ### 5/5 — Amazing *2026-08-08, version 2.13.1* This app and all other corresponding app from this developer are amazing and deserve much more recognition!! Thanks so much for your help ### 5/5 — Easy to use *2026-08-07, version 2.13.1* Easy to use. Does all the things I want. ### 3/5 — Good, but *2026-08-07, version 2.13.1* It frequently crashes before I can finish writing all the hiragana and katakana ### 5/5 — very good and nice *2026-08-05, version 2.13.1* its free and works ### 5/5 — Recommend recommended *2026-08-05* Very good app to learn Hiragana and katagana ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ### 5/5 — very useful app for learners *2026-08-04, version 2.13.1* this app has made learning and writing individual kana very easy, would recommend ### 5/5 — Excellent app! *2026-08-04, version 2.13.1* A great way to learn Japanese characters. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Won’t record practice *2026-08-17, version 2.13.1* When I practice writing the symbol, I tap on the check mark and nothing happens. I reset and try again. I can never get the app to work. ### 1/5 — Not clear *2026-07-28, version 2.13.1* Not clear on how to use and very buggy ### 1/5 — Meh *2026-07-28, version 2.13.1* I felt Bored so suck it stupid app that made me mad haha you are trash good luck getting people to install a 1 star app. ### 1/5 — Check mark not working on iPhone *2026-07-04* Installed and uninstalled within 10 mins. The check mark after writing practice is failing to click. So no writing practise is recorded. I have the screen recording. Not sure if its an app issue or an action issue. Also, there is no tutorial played. ### 1/5 — broken, useless *2026-04-09, version 2.13.1* helped to memorize hiragana. now when i switch to katakana, it does not exist. i can't get the app to quiz me on the katakana. even when i am doing a custom "katakana only" quiz, i will only get hiragana characters to practice. i'm uninstalling now, as it has no practical use for me anymore. ### 1/5 — Good but abandoned *2026-04-05, version 2.13.1* It’s a great app that has helped me learn the kana but the smart quizzes just don’t work they never use katakana and only use hiragana and they rarely follow the category and never actually put in low scoreing kana and it just doesn’t work. And it appears they don’t care as this bug has been a problem for over a year and a half. ### 1/5 — Quizzes completely broken *2026-02-14, version 2.13.1* Non of the “smart quiz” options work correctly. I only get the same 40 characters that have streaks of 20+ when I have 100s that only had a streak of 1 or two. Since this app doesn’t show you the kana you actually need to learn it’s effectively useless. I checked the custom quiz scope to see if that would fix it but it did not. It’s not even showing me any katakana when most of those are the lowest score and streak characters I have. ### 1/5 — No email to contact developer *2026-01-29, version 2.13.1* I have questions / issues about the app. I do not use X / Twitter / Instagram so how am I supposed to contact them? ### 1/5 — No Instructions *2025-11-27, version 2.13.1* Very difficult to navigate and use this app. No instructions on how to use, you have to hunt and peck and try to figure things out. ### 1/5 — Really hard for a beginner *2025-10-16, version 2.13.1* Not sure if I just haven’t figured out the app or what, but it seems that some instructions and explanations would help me to know what I am being quizzed on. Guessing doesn’t seem to work and moving on from a wrong answer without explaining and helping me learn to correctly identify characters would be great. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Simple, Fun & FREE *2026-08-31, version 2.13.1* This app is definitely the best app for those who want to master Japanese alphabets!! It’s very simple and it’s completely free! I usually don’t review apps but this app is soo good that I couldn’t just stay quiet! I highly recommend this and I am glad that I discovered this amazing app.💯 Hope this app is forever free:) ### 5/5 — Great for Uni kickstart *2026-08-30, version 2.13.1* Amazing stuff for getting a head start and keeping up practice for remembering both hiragana and katakana ### 5/5 — Really good *2026-08-29, version 2.13.1* About as customizable as you need. ### 5/5 — Bestest app ever please read *2026-08-29, version 2.13.1* So glad I found this. I’ve always learned Japanese off and on cuz it was hard to keep doing Duolingo with all the ads and all the other ones woth ads or cost money but this is completely free no ads and it’s genuinely like just wants you to learn Japanese. I got their other apps one with a textbook and the other for kanji and man best thing ever. This is the furthest I’ve ever learned Japanese and I’m actually staying committed. You can go at your own pace to. So nice so easy. 100 percent recommend. ### 5/5 — Amazing tool for studying. *2026-08-27, version 2.13.1* I’ve been learning Japanese in an actual school setting, however I found it quite difficult to remember every Hiragana. This app does a great job for memorisation and testing you on what you know. This morning, I had a test on Hiragana and aced it, mostly because of this app, lol. My favorite part is how it has the statistics visible on the front page, which helps me learn the hiragana i haven’t quite mastered. This is the same for the tests, they give you several options, including least mastered by score, by streak, least reviewed, and new kana. (You can also select specific kana to be tested on, which is how I remove kana I’ve mastered from my tests if I’m not reviewing, but instead trying to memorise as many new ones as possible. Tests have 3 modes which is just as helpful, multiple choice only (easy!), drawing input & keyboard inout for writing (hard), and lastly automatic: which is just all of those but it relies on how well you did on previous questions (either harder or easier). Other apps tend to be really annoying with paywalls and bad explanations, but I love this app series, and overall I’d recommend it to anyone who’s getting this app just for studying. Learning new kana with this app? I would suggest you write on paper to get the shape right first, and then using the app for studying and remembering it. Main points: free, has statistics, multiple modes, great for studying, no ads, and my personal favorite for studying kana. ### 5/5 — Great app to memorise *2026-08-25, version 2.13.1* Love this app for my uni class. ### 5/5 — Simply amazing *2026-08-25, version 2.13.1* This app is such a simple but amazing app. This app is very responsive. Very user friendly. No complaints. Best kana app on the App Store. ### 5/5 — Best app for rote memorizing kanas *2026-08-23, version 2.13.1* Very simple and functional UI! It also shows you all your stats to see which kanas you’re weak in. ### 5/5 — An excellent app! *2026-08-23, version 2.13.1* Little by little I started understanding how to learn Japanese language. This app is super!!!!! ### 5/5 — Amazing app if used daily *2026-08-21, version 2.13.1* You can quite easily master hiragana and katakana if you pair this with reading japanese daily. I lt took me about 2-3 weeks to get fully comfortable with both, its alot easier than the rest of japanese but a great place to start --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-04.*