Self-study Japanese · every fact dated
The road from kana to kanji, one square at a time
- 1Hiraganaone sign per syllable, for native words and grammar endings
- 2Katakanathe same sounds again, for words borrowed from abroad
- 3Kanjimeaning-carrying characters, each with more than one reading
- 4Mouthspeaking to a person who answers back
Japanese is not one skill but six, and they arrive in a fixed order. Kanaroad maps that order, says plainly which tool covers which stage, and quotes every exam fact from the examining body's own page with the date it was read.
Six jobs, and nothing skips one
Japanese asks for two syllabaries, a set of particles, a character set, ears and a mouth. Most tools do one or two of those well and let you assume the rest are included. The route page says where each one stops, and which squares you fill in yourself.
- 01Hiraganaone sign per syllable, for native words and grammar endings
- 02Katakanathe same sounds again, for words borrowed from abroad
- 03Particlesthe little words that mark who does what to whom
- 04Kanjimeaning-carrying characters, each with more than one reading
- 05Earslistening at speed, which no amount of reading supplies
- 06Mouthspeaking to a person who answers back
Where the numbers on this site come from
出Exam facts — levels, test times, pass marks, dates — are quoted from jlpt.jp, the official Japanese-Language Proficiency Test site run by the Japan Foundation and Japan Educational Exchanges and Services, read 24 September 2026.
出The only hours figure here is the US Foreign Service Institute’s published language-category band, read from the State Department’s own page on 24 September 2026 — classroom hours for diplomats in full-time training, never a forecast for somebody studying from an app after work.
出Prices are read off the seller’s own page and carry the date. Where a seller only renders its prices after checkout, this site says so and prints no number.
Road notes
All notes →JLPT Levels Explained, Using Only What the Test Itself Publishes
Five levels, published pass marks, a level that asks more than the one above it, and no official vocabulary list since 2010 — straight from jlpt.jp.
Read the note →09Aug 12, 2026Japanese or Korean: Which Is Easier, and Why the Ranking Says Neither
The one body that publishes a difficulty ranking puts both in the same band. The real difference is where the difficulty sits — and they are opposites.
Read the note →08Aug 7, 2026Japanese Podcasts: How to Pick One That Actually Moves Your Listening
The best Japanese podcast for you is decided by four properties, not by a ranking — and three of the four are things a listing page never tells you.
Read the note →07Aug 2, 2026Learning Japanese With Anime: What It Teaches and What It Ruins
Anime is excellent listening input and a terrible grammar source, and the difference matters more in Japanese than in any European language.
Read the note →06Jul 28, 2026Books for Learning Japanese: What Each Kind Is Actually For
A textbook, a grammar reference, a kanji book and a reader do four different jobs, and buying the wrong kind is the usual reason a book sits unopened.
Read the note →05Jul 23, 2026How to Learn Japanese by Yourself: A Plan That Survives Month Three
Self-study fails at predictable points, for predictable reasons. Here is the week-by-week shape that avoids the three most common collapses, and what it costs.
Read the note →What this site refuses to do
Kanaroad prints no hours-to-fluency figure, because nobody publishes one for self-study and inventing one would be the most useful lie on the page. The single hours figure anywhere on this site belongs to the US Foreign Service Institute, is labelled as classroom hours for its own full-time students, and is used only to show how Japanese is ranked against French or Russian.
It also prints no kanji or vocabulary count "required" for a JLPT level, because the test stopped publishing those lists when it was revised in 2010 and says so in its own FAQ. Where a seller renders its prices only after a checkout step, this site says so and quotes nothing.
What it does instead
Every page answers in its first two sentences and then shows its working. Exam facts come from jlpt.jp; the difficulty ranking comes from the US State Department's page for the Foreign Service Institute; prices come from the seller's own page and carry the day they were read. Where the honest answer is a free tool that pays us nothing — a kana chart, Anki, NHK WORLD-JAPAN's lessons, a free app tier — that is the answer given, and it is named as free.
Start with the best way to learn Japanese, square by square if you want the route, or with which app does which job if you already know which stage you are stuck on.