About Kanaate
Kanaate is a daily hiragana word puzzle made and run by webrara, an individual developer. You can play it in the browser and as an app on iPhone and Android.
Why we made it
Daily word puzzles are popular in English, but there were few that let you play with hiragana on a phone. Hiragana has things that are unique to Japanese: dakuten, the small circle of handakuten and small kana. We wanted people to feel the fun and the difficulty of that inside a game.
We also wanted people who are learning Japanese to be able to play. That is why the screen text is available in 21 languages, why the keys can show romaji, and why you can type with a romaji keyboard on a PC. The answer pages have English notes as well.
What we care about
- One puzzle a day, the same for everyone, with no sign-up.
- Sharing a result never spoils the answer.
- Word choices that are comfortable for everyone, from children to adults.
- The same rules wherever you play.
About the word data
Readings and English glosses come from JMdict, the dictionary data of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (EDRDG). JMdict is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0). See the EDRDG licence page for the terms.
Answers are chosen mainly from everyday nouns, leaving out words that could hurt people and words that are too hard.
The answer notes (meaning, examples, note and related words) are published under the name of the Kanaate editors. We use generative AI to prepare drafts, and the editors check them before publishing. If you find a mistake, please tell us at the address below.
Get the app
In the app your records are not affected by clearing browser data, and you can play puzzles older than yesterday.
Ads and privacy
This site is supported by advertising. Ads appear on the how-to-play, FAQ and answer pages; there are no ads on the game screen itself (the app has its own ads). How data is handled is described in the privacy policy (in Japanese).
Contact
For feedback, bug reports and corrections to the word notes, please write to neukyosuke@gmail.com.
We may not be able to answer every message, but we read all of them.