Kdrill Main Window

[main window screenshot]

The idea is to guess which of the strings in the five middle buttons match the one on top.

Just below the top button are three windows which tell you a little about the character you are trying to guess. This one is categorized as a "first grade" character. Its frequency of use is 24. That means that in everyday usage, it is the 24th most popular character!

The top button can show a Kanji character string, a kana character string, or an English string. The cluster of five buttons can also be set to display guesses from one of those three categories.

You don't have to be quizzed randomly from all 6300 kanji available. You can narrow the quizzes to certain grades, frequency of use, or just random kanji you pick. Furthermore, it keeps track of your wrong answers, and will go back to them more frequently.

The "missed" box keeps a running total of how many kanji you misguessed an answer for. (a click on a wrong definition counts as TWO missed: the kanji on display, and the definition you thought meant the same thing). If your "missed" total is depressing you, just press backspace in the box, and it will get cleared :-)

Guessing vs cheatint

If you want to kinda-sorta guess at one of the 5 choices, you have the option of right-clicking on a choice. This will pop up the kdrill search window, with that particular entry pre-loaded. This will show you all three aspect of it (English, Kanji, and hiragana meanings)

If you dont wish to study your guess in detail, you may also "cheat" by using the "c" key, or cheat button, to highlight the correct answer. Contrariwise, if you wish to cheat, AND review the answer in detail, capital "C" will do both.

Review Previous

If you

Other windows

Here are some other parts of the program

The search option lets you search through the dictionary for an English phrase, a kana fragment, or even a specific kanji.

The learning window focuses on just showing you definitions, with no pressure.


Got a rough feel for kdrill? Then download it and give it a try. Don't forget, you'll need access to a C compiler to compile the source, unless you are a debian user. In which case, all you have to do is "apt-get install kdrill". Although that may not get you the absolute latest version of kdrill

An Installation Guide is available, if you are new at downloading and compiling X software.
Once you get past that hurdle, there are some beginner's tips on things you might like to try, once you have it working.


Kdrill main page (for downloading, etc)
Comments? Please email me at phil@bolthole.com