JLPT Kanji App With Spaced Repetition and Writing Practice: What to Look For

Short answer

The best JLPT kanji app combines three things: spaced repetition that schedules each kanji by how well you remember it, writing practice with stroke order, and example words at your target level. Most apps do the first well and the second poorly, so test the writing before you pay. If an app only flips flashcards, you will recognise kanji on the exam but struggle to remember them a month later.

Why spaced repetition suits kanji

Kanji are a long list of small items, each with several readings and meanings. That is exactly the kind of material spaced repetition handles well. The app shows a card, you rate how well you recalled it, and the next review is pushed further out when you were right and pulled closer when you were wrong.

What to check in the scheduler:

• It tracks cards separately. Remembering a kanji's meaning and remembering its reading are different skills. A good app lets a weak reading come back sooner without dragging the meaning along.
• It caps new cards per day. Unlimited new cards feel productive for a week, then bury you in reviews. A daily allowance keeps the review pile survivable.
• It shows you what is due. You should see today's reviews before you start, so you can decide whether to add new kanji or just clear the backlog.
• It lets you study by level. N5 to N1 each have their own kanji set, and mixing levels dilutes the effort.

Why writing practice matters, even if the JLPT never asks you to write

The JLPT is a multiple-choice exam. You will never handwrite a kanji on it. So is writing a waste of time?

Not quite. Writing forces you to notice the parts of a character: the radical on the left, the phonetic component on the right, the number of strokes. Those details are what separate look-alike kanji such as 待 and 持, or 末 and 未. A learner who has only tapped flashcards often confuses these in the reading section. A learner who has traced them a few times does not.

Writing practice is optional for passing, but it is one of the cheapest ways to fix recognition errors. Use it for the kanji you keep getting wrong, not for every card.

What good kanji writing practice looks like

There is a big gap between an app that shows a static stroke diagram and one that teaches you to write. Look for three stages:

1. Stroke-order animation. You watch the character being drawn, stroke by stroke, in the correct order and direction.
2. Tracing. You draw over a faint guide, and the app tells you when a stroke goes the wrong way.
3. Guided writing from memory. The guide fades, and you reproduce the character with hints only when you need them.

If an app skips straight to blank-canvas writing, beginners will guess. If it never moves past tracing, you will not know whether you can actually produce the character. Also check that the writing cards feed back into your review schedule. Writing that lives in a separate corner of the app is easy to forget.

Readings and vocabulary: the part most apps underplay

The exam rarely asks "what does this kanji mean?" in isolation. It asks you to pick the reading of a word, or the right kanji for a word written in kana. So the card should teach kanji inside words:

• Show common words, not only the kanji alone. 生 has many readings; you learn them through words like 学生, 生活 and 生まれる.
• Mark on'yomi and kun'yomi clearly. If you are unsure how the two systems work, our guide to kanji readings explains how to stop rote-memorising them.
• Keep the level filter on the words too. A word card that suddenly uses N1 vocabulary under an N4 kanji is noise.

How to combine the two in a daily routine

A routine that fits into 20 to 30 minutes:

1. Clear today's due reviews first. Never skip them to add new cards.
2. Add a small batch of new kanji, with the stroke-order animation for each.
3. For any kanji you rated "hard" in the last few days, do one tracing or guided-writing card.
4. Finish with two or three example words per new kanji, read aloud.

Keep the batch small. A few well-learned kanji a day beats a large batch you forget by the weekend.

Where Toey fits

Toey's JLPT module is built around this combination. Study › Kanji has stroke-order animation, tracing and guided writing cards, and the same writing cards appear inside your review. Kana is fully open on the free plan, and the free study set includes a limited amount of spaced-repetition content, so you can try the writing flow before paying. The study plan shows only week 1 on the free plan, and the rest unlocks with Pro.

Two honest limits: Toey is web only for now, with no mobile app yet, and writing practice is for your own checking, not an exam requirement. Pro is $12.99 per month, and passes and a Lifetime option also exist if you prefer not to subscribe.

How to test any app in 10 minutes

Before you commit to any kanji app, run this check:

• Open a kanji and see whether it animates the stroke order.
• Try to trace it and see whether wrong strokes are flagged.
• Find a reading you do not know and see whether it appears inside a real word.
• Rate a card "hard" and see whether it returns sooner than a card you rated "easy".
• Check whether the level you are studying is the only one it shows you.

An app that passes all five is worth a longer trial. One that fails the writing check or the scheduling check is a flashcard deck with a nice design.

Checked on 31 October 2026.

Ready to try it? Start with Toey JLPT.