How to play Kanaate
Kanaate is a free daily puzzle in which you guess a Japanese word written in hiragana. There are two puzzles a day, one with 4 kana and one with 5 kana, and they change every day at midnight Japan time (JST). Everyone in the world gets the same puzzle, so you can compare results with friends. This guide explains the rules, the colors, the keyboard, hints and more. You do not need to read Japanese to follow it, but you do need to know the hiragana. Romaji help is built into the game.
1. The basic rules
- Puzzles: every day there is one 4-kana word and one 5-kana word. They are the same for everybody and change at midnight JST.
- Guesses: you aim to solve the 4-kana puzzle in 8 guesses and the 5-kana puzzle in 10.
- Typing: enter hiragana and press the Enter key (labeled きめる in Japanese). Only words from the built-in dictionary are accepted. A word that is not in the dictionary is rejected with a message and does not use up a guess.
- Feedback: after each guess every tile turns a color. Use the colors to plan your next guess.
- Solving: when every tile is green, you have solved it. A result card appears and your record is saved.
Answers are mostly everyday nouns. Some are loanwords written in katakana in real life; here they appear in hiragana with the long-vowel mark ー (for example, さいだー).
2. What the colors mean
There are four colors. If colors are hard for you to tell apart, turn on the "easier to tell apart" color mode in the settings: it uses a different palette and adds the marks ● ◆ ▲ to the tiles.
- Green: the right kana in the right place.
- Blue: the right place, but the mark is different: only the dakuten (゛), handakuten (゜) or small size differs.
- Yellow: this exact kana is in the answer, but in a different place.
- Gray: this kana is not in the answer (or you used it more times than it appears).
Example 1: the answer is ふうりん (wind chime)
ふ, う and ん are right in both kana and place, so they are green. せ is not in the answer, so it is gray.
Example 2: blue and yellow
The first tile ぶ is in the same place as ふ in the answer and differs only by the dakuten, so it is blue. ん is in the answer, but in a different place (it is the 4th kana there), so it is yellow. ら and こ are not in the answer, so they are gray.
Example 3: a kana that appears twice
The answer is りょうり, which has り twice. The first り is green. The third tile り is yellow, because the 4th り of the answer is still unused. If the answer has a kana only once and you type it twice, only one of the two tiles gets a color and the other one is gray. So repeated kana are always possible: just try them.
3. Typing dakuten, handakuten and small kana
The bottom row of the keyboard has the keys ゛ (dakuten), ゜ (handakuten) and 小 (small). They change the kana you typed last. For example, type は and press ゛ to get ば; press it again to go back to は.
| Key | What it does | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| ゛ | Switches between the plain and the voiced kana | か ⇄ が / は ⇄ ば / ほ ⇄ ぼ |
| ゜ | Only for the は-row: switches between plain and semi-voiced | は ⇄ ぱ / ひ ⇄ ぴ / ほ ⇄ ぽ |
| 小 | Makes や, ゆ, よ and つ small, and back | や ⇄ ゃ / ゆ ⇄ ゅ / よ ⇄ ょ / つ ⇄ っ |
Pressing ゜ on a voiced kana does nothing: press ゛ first to return to the plain kana. は, ば and ぱ count as different tiles, but if they sit in the same place the tile turns blue.
If you prefer one key per kana, switch the keyboard to "All" in the settings. Then が, ぱ, っ and the rest get their own keys. There is also a switch key at the bottom left of the game screen.
4. Using the keyboard
The kana keyboard
The keyboard is a 5 × 10 grid of kana, arranged by vowel (あ, い, う, え, お) and consonant (the rows of the gojūon table). Each key you press fills the leftmost empty tile. Tap a tile to move the cursor, and use the Delete key (けす) to erase.
Key colors and marks
Your guesses so far are shown on the keys too. Green beats blue, blue beats yellow, and yellow beats gray. For voiced and small versions, a small band at the bottom of the key shows which ones you have already tried. A colored mark means tried; an empty mark means not yet.
Long-press for your own notes
Press and hold a key to mark it with your own note. Each long press cycles through ✕, ○ and none. Use ✕ for "probably not" and ○ for "probably yes". The notes are only for you and do not affect the game.
Playing with a PC keyboard
On a computer you can type with your keyboard. Type romaji and it is converted to hiragana as you go. Enter submits the guess and Backspace deletes. Typing hiragana directly with a Japanese input method also works.
| Kana | How to type it |
|---|---|
| し, ち, つ, ふ, じ | shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji (si, ti, tu, hu, zi also work) |
| を | wo |
| ん | nn or n'. A final n becomes ん when you press Enter |
| が, ぱ and so on | Just type ga, pa, ... |
| small っ | Double the consonant (kk, ss, ...) or type xtu / ltu |
| small ゃ, ゅ, ょ | Type kya, shu, cho, ... to get き+ゃ and so on, or xya / xyu / xyo |
| ー (long vowel) | The hyphen key (-) |
If you are learning Japanese, turn on the romaji guide in the settings. It prints the romaji in small letters on each key (by default it is shown whenever the language is not Japanese).
5. The candidate counter
At the top of the board you will see a line like "12 candidates left". It counts how many words in the dictionary are still consistent with everything you have learned so far. It shrinks with every guess; the smaller it gets, the closer you are. You can switch it off in the settings if you prefer not to see it.
6. The hint
After your 3rd guess in the 4-kana puzzle (or your 4th in the 5-kana puzzle) a Hint button appears. You can use one hint per puzzle. It picks one of the letters you have not solved yet and tells you which position it is and which row of the kana table it belongs to, for example "Letter 3 is in the ta row". It never gives the answer itself. The keyboard also highlights that row so you can narrow things down.
On the web version the hint is free and has no ad. In the app, it is unlocked by watching a short video ad, unless you bought the ad-free option.
7. Overtime and giving up
If you do not solve the puzzle within the normal number of guesses (8 or 10), the game does not end. It goes into "overtime": you can keep guessing until you get it, and the answer stays hidden. In your stats such a day still counts as a miss, but the number of puzzles you solved in overtime is tracked separately.
If you really want the answer, press "Give up" (こうさん). The first press asks for confirmation and a second press confirms. A give-up also counts as a miss in your stats.
8. Results, sharing and everyone's record
When you solve a puzzle, a result card shows how many guesses it took, your current streak, and the answer with its reading. The Details button opens the word on Wiktionary.
The Share button builds a text with colored squares (🟩🟦🟨⬛). The shared text never contains the letters of the answer, so it is safe to post. The heading looks like "#かなあて #12 4もじ 3/8".
When you are online, the card also shows everyone's record for the day: the number of players, how many solved it, the average number of guesses and the most common first guesses. These are anonymous totals. Your own rank for the day is shown only to you. You can stop sending data in the settings.
9. Practice and the archive
- Practice: unlimited random puzzles, separate from the daily ones. Its stats are counted separately.
- Archive: play past daily puzzles. Yesterday's puzzle is free. In the app, you can unlock older puzzles by watching a video ad (or by buying the ad-free option). The web version lets you play yesterday's puzzle and points you to the app for older ones.
If you only want to read past answers, the answer list has the answer and notes for every finished day.
10. Your stats
Tap the 📊 button at the top right of the home screen. You will see how many puzzles you have played, your win rate, your current and best streaks, the distribution of the guess you solved on, and your overtime solves. Your records are stored only inside the browser or device you play on.
If you clear the browser's site data, the web version's records are cleared too. There are no accounts, so records cannot be moved to another device. If you want to keep your records safely, the app is the better choice: it is not affected by clearing browser history.
11. Settings
- Language: 21 languages for the screen text (the puzzle itself is always hiragana).
- Theme: light, dark or automatic.
- Colors: the "easier to tell apart" mode uses a color-blind-friendly palette and ● ◆ ▲ marks.
- Candidate counter, romaji guide and keyboard type, as explained above.
- Vibration and sound can be switched on and off.
- Everyone's record: you can stop the anonymous data from being sent.
12. Tips
- Mix the rows in your first guess: use common kana from different rows (for example あ, い, う, か, し, た and ん) to learn as much as possible.
- Blue means "almost": the place is right. Try adding or removing the dakuten or handakuten.
- Move yellow tiles: yellow kana are in the answer, so use them in a different place.
- Drop gray tiles: gray kana are normally out. The exception is when you typed the same kana more times than it appears.
- Watch the counter: when it falls below ten, try to picture the remaining words.
13. Send a word
From the "Send a word" button on the home screen you can suggest a word. You can send up to three words a day, each 4 or 5 hiragana long. Names of people, places and products and words that could hurt people are not accepted. Words that pass the review will one day become a daily puzzle (the day is a secret). Your name is never shown.
Thank you for reading. The rules are simple, but the road to each answer is different every day. If something is still unclear, see the FAQ.