Kankore: Kanji & Kana Writing
Trace, write and collect kanji
Free · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
A picture book that fills with the kanji you write by hand. No red X: it shows which stroke went wrong. Hiragana to grade 6 kanji, three a day. 15 per stage free, no ads.
Kankore is a handwriting app for Japanese: hiragana, katakana and kanji, from the 92 kana children learn before school to all 1,026 kanji of the six years of Japanese elementary school. Only the characters your child writes by hand are collected, as cards in their own picture book, the zukan.
The app itself is in Japanese. Everything a child sees is written in hiragana and katakana and read aloud, so it suits children growing up with Japanese at home or abroad, and learners who want to write Japanese properly.
WATCH, TRACE, WRITE
See the stroke order one stroke at a time, trace the faint character, then write it on your own.
NO RED X
A wrong start, a wrong direction, the wrong order, one stroke split in two or two strokes joined: Kankore says which stroke went wrong and how, then lets your child try again. Neatness and the finer points of stroke endings never fail a stroke.
CATCH EVERY CHARACTER
Cards have three levels. Written without the model, a character is caught; written again on a later day, it is mastered. Writing it three times in one day does not count, so the book only holds characters your child can really write.
SEE HOW KANJI ARE BUILT
Characters come in families, like 木, 林 and 森. Complete a family to see how its characters are put together: 木 + 木 = 林.
THREE A DAY, THEN DONE
Three characters a day (or one, or five), about five minutes, with a clear end. There are no streaks to lose.
FOR PARENTS
- A parent page behind a three-second press shows today's characters, this week's practice days, and the characters most often missed, and why.
- Make printable practice sheets from the characters your child has written or often misses, and print them or save them as PDF.
- Set your child's grade and how far ahead they may go.
- Up to four children on one device.
- The kanji of each grade follow the official Japanese school list, and the stroke order is the one taught in Japanese schools.
FREE TO TRY, NO ADS
The first 15 characters of every stage (hiragana, katakana and each school grade) are free. One purchase in the parent area unlocks the other 998 for good. No ads, no subscription, no account. The purchase sits behind a parent check, so a child never sees a price or a buy button.
PRIVACY
Progress stays on the device and moves to a new one with your iCloud backup. To improve the app, usage records (the characters practiced and the results, never your child's name) are sent to Google Analytics. They are not used for advertising or tracking.
For iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or later; iPad works in landscape too.
Credits: stroke data KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0), readings KANJIDIC2 (CC BY-SA 4.0), voice VOICEVOX:春日部つむぎ
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
NEW
- Practice sheets: in the parent area, make printable worksheets from the characters your child has written or often misses, then print, save as PDF or share them.
- Feedback: send us your comments and requests from the parent area.
IMPROVEMENTS
- Music from other apps comes back after a voice line.
- If the app closes in the middle of a lesson, it picks up where it left off.
- The parent area asks for the parent check again after 5 minutes away.
The developer, Bin Yang, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Usage Data
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Bin Yang
- Size
- 78.7 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- Japanese
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Shosin Labs