Make a Drill of Only the Kanji You Miss with KanjiN's My Data

KanjiN has three tabs along the bottom: Home, Drills and My Data. My Data is where you write your own kanji questions. Each question has three parts: an example sentence, the answer kanji and the reading in hiragana. You keep questions in folders and use them in the Writing Drill, the Reading Drill and the tests.

This post goes through the screens in order, from an empty folder to a drill made only of the kanji you keep getting wrong.

One question, one kanji

The answer to a My Data question is a single kanji. You pick one kanji from your sentence as the answer and enter its reading.

Here are a few questions you could make:

Example sentence	Answer kanji	Reading (hiragana)
電車に乗る	乗	の
天気がよい	天	てん
天気がよい	気	き

In the Writing Drill, the sentence appears with the reading in place of the answer kanji, and you write the kanji by hand. To practise both kanji of a word like 天気, make two questions from the same sentence with a different answer each time.

The reading is the reading of that kanji in that sentence. For 乗 in 電車に乗る it is の, without the okurigana る. For 天 in 天気 it is てん.

Make a folder

1. Open the My Data tab.
2. Tap New Folder at the bottom right.
3. Type a folder name and tap OK.

One folder, 未分類, is there from the start. The folder list shows how many questions each folder holds, such as “3 questions”.

One way to use them is a folder per textbook chapter or JLPT level, plus one for kanji you missed.

Add a question

1. Tap a folder to open it.
2. Tap Add Question at the bottom right.
3. Type a sentence under Example sentence.
4. Under Answer kanji, each kanji from your sentence appears on its own. Tap the one you want as the answer.
5. Type the reading under Reading (hiragana). Once you choose the answer kanji, readings for it appear underneath, and you can tap one to fill it in.
6. Tap Save at the top right.

Until the sentence has a kanji in it, the Answer kanji area says “Type kanji in the sentence to see candidates”. For kanji taught in Japanese elementary school, a line such as “Estimated grade: Grade 3” appears after you choose the answer. 乗 is grade 3, and 天 and 気 are grade 1.

If any of the three parts is empty when you save, the app shows “Please enter a sentence, the answer kanji, and its reading”.

The rest of the sentence can be in kana. You can write the other words in hiragana if you have not learned their kanji yet.

Collect the kanji you miss

When you finish a Writing Drill or Reading Drill, the result screen has a Question review where you can go back through each question. The kanji you got wrong or passed on are the ones to add to your folder.

For the two kinds of mistake learners make most, there are separate posts: Similar-Looking Kanji Learners Mix Up and Same Reading, Different Kanji. If the JLPT is close, One Month to the December JLPT has a review plan.

Use the folder in a drill

1. In the Drills tab, tap the drill you want, such as the Writing Drill.
2. In the settings screen, choose My Data from the categories.
3. Under “Select the folders to practice”, your folders are listed as “folder name (number)”. Check the ones you want.
4. Tap Start.

My Data appears as a category once at least one folder has a question in it. You can choose it in the Writing Drill, the Reading Drill, the Writing Test, the Reading Test and other drills.

A session draws from everything you have checked, across all categories. Each category label shows how many items are checked, for example “School (1)”. At first, Grade 1 under School is checked, so to practise only your own questions, go back to School and uncheck it. To mix your questions with the built-in ones, such as JLPT N4, leave both checked.

In the Writing Test and Reading Test, the same screen has a question count you can set from 10 to 100 in steps of 10.

Edit or delete

Tap a question inside a folder to open Edit Question, change the sentence or reading, and tap Save. The menu at the right end of each question has Edit and Delete.

The menu at the right end of each folder has Rename and Delete. Deleting a folder also deletes every question in it, and the app asks you to confirm first. The 未分類 folder cannot be deleted.

Sync with iCloud

At the top right of the My Data screen there is a Sync with iCloud button. When the sync finishes, the app shows “Synced with iCloud”.

Making your own drill in KanjiN

KanjiN is a kanji app for iPhone and iPad where you answer by handwriting. Instead of tapping a choice, you write on the screen with a finger or stylus.

Practising with your My Data folders is part of the one-time purchase, Unlock Everything, which opens every drill, with no ads and no subscription. Today’s Drill, Today’s Challenge and the 10-question Skill Check are free. Besides your own questions, you can practise JLPT N5 to N3 kanji, school grades 1 to 6 and Kanken levels 10 to 5. The first time you use it, the app downloads what it needs to read handwriting, so you need an internet connection then.

More ways to keep a daily habit are in Practical Tips for KanjiN, and how to start is in Getting Started with KanjiN.