Daily Proverbs
Daily Proverbs
10 questions a round. About 3 minutes.
For parents
Answer questions about the proverb that appears on the blackboard. Pick one of the four cards below — that’s all.
The proverbs you find hard show up more often. Get five right in a row and you win a picture.
An app for learning Japanese proverbs (kotowaza). A round is 10 questions and takes about 3 minutes. Well-known proverbs are asked in three ways — fill in the blank, match a meaning, or match a scene — and answered by choosing one of four cards. The aim is not handwriting but knowing what a proverb means and when to use it.
Play now → Open the app → No sign-in needed
A proverb such as “Even a dog that walks will bump into a stick” appears on the blackboard. Hard kanji carry small furigana above them, so you do not need to read every character.
The yellow line tells you what to answer: the word that fills the blank, the proverb for this meaning, or the proverb for this scene — three kinds in all.
Answer by choosing one of the four cards below. It is decided the moment you tap — there is no “Enter” button.
The cards are laid out to fit the answer: four across for a single character, two by two for a short word, four down the page for a whole proverb.
When you answer correctly, the mark depends on how fast you were.
The bar at the top of the blackboard shows how fast you are going. A wrong answer never gets an ✕ — miss once and it simply shows you the answer and moves on.
Every 5 correct answers in a row, you win one picture. Your pictures go into the Collection — 58 in all.
Once you have a picture, it stays yours forever. A “?” is one you have not won yet — you never know which is coming until you get it.
The app remembers the proverbs you got wrong, or have not seen for a while, and puts them first next time.
On the “Problems” screen you choose which proverbs to practise. Filter by level (beginner / intermediate / advanced) or by theme (luck, effort, carelessness and so on), and you can sort them in aiueo order.
Miss once and the app shows you the answer, then moves on. The proverb goes onto a “fix your mistakes” list and stays until you get it right — it does not disappear the next day.
Tap “Try again now” on the Home screen to drill just the ones you missed.
How many you answered, how fast you were, and how many you got right — every day is recorded. A perfect day earns a 💮.
Play every day and your “day streak” keeps growing. The proverbs you are weakest at are listed as chips, too.
You can keep only the question kinds you like (fill in the blank, meaning, or scene). You can also change how many questions come in a round, and turn furigana, sound and vibration on or off.
You can turn on “See answer” too. But looking is recorded as a wrong answer, and that proverb goes onto the “fix your mistakes” list.
No name, no password. Just open it and start.
Sign in with Google and your record is saved, so you can carry on from another device such as a tablet or a computer. Everything you did before signing in comes with you.
The unit of learning is the proverb itself. Proverbs answered wrongly, or not seen for a while, are asked first. A child only taps “Start”; within the chosen range, the weakest come first.
The range is chosen by level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and can be narrowed by theme. Five sort orders are available — hardest first, aiueo, listed order, last answered, and accuracy — with a kana index when sorted by reading. Readings are derived automatically from the furigana in each proverb.
At present 65 beginner proverbs are included (intermediate and advanced are being added). Every one can be asked in all three ways — fill in the blank, meaning, and scene.
Answers are picked from four cards. The wrong cards are built on the server: for fill-in, other words that could plausibly fill the same blank; for meaning and scene, other proverbs on the same theme. If four clean choices cannot be formed, the combination is simply not asked.
The proverbs carry furigana (which can be turned off; none is shown over a hidden part, since the reading would give the answer away).
Because it is four-choice, a wrong answer immediately reveals the correct one and moves on (no retyping). A missed proverb stays until it is answered correctly — it is not discarded the next day. “Try again now” on the Home screen drills only what is unresolved.
“See answer” is recorded as a wrong answer the moment it is used. Looking is not a bad thing — it is simply recorded, and the proverb comes back later. A wrong answer never shows an “✕”; the signal is the absence of a mark, plus sound and vibration.
Each day’s answer count, average time and accuracy are kept, and a 30-day chart shows the days kept up. Weak proverbs are listed as chips, hardest first, each labelled with its theme.
Red and green are not used as a pair. Colour vision differs from person to person, so the scale is shades of a single colour.
Everything a child is meant to learn from — the proverb on the blackboard, the answer cards, the list — is set in a textbook-style typeface (Klee One). The rest of the interface uses a rounded gothic face.
A rounded face softens every stroke end, so the stops, hooks and sweeps that define correct character shapes disappear. Fine for reading, but not a model — hence the switch for the text being studied.
No name, no password — open it and start. Without signing in, the record is tied to the browser session.
As a guest, the record is lost if the browser’s data (cookies) is cleared. Sign in with Google to keep it. Everything played as a guest carries over to the account, and can be continued on another device.
Note that a guest record is not merged into an account that already has one (there is no right answer to which numbers to keep). One account is one child — for siblings, sign in with separate accounts.
The interface is available in Japanese and English (the JA / EN switch in the header; the proverbs themselves stay in Japanese).
Every 5 correct answers in a row wins one hand-drawn picture — 58 in all. Once won, a picture never goes away.
The marks work the same way. There are two: a flower circle (fast) and a plain circle (correct), and a wrong answer never gets an “✕”. The steps are kept few so as not to rush a child.
Ready to try? Try a round together
Play now → Open the app →No name, no password. Open it and start.
This page is part of the development docs. The screens are work in progress and show sample data.