The place you put the Japanese words and phrases you want to remember. Add a word from the dictionary or from a collection and it becomes a card — one you can practise until you know it.
Free, no card. You can sign in with an email link — a password is optional.
Once a word is a card, you practise it with flashcards and a quiz. Every correct review moves the card up a step and its colour changes with it, so a glance down the list tells you what is new, what is nearly there, and what you already know.
Left to right: a new word, four review stages, and a graduated one.
The builder does not stop at this site. The free Chrome extension carries your list into the browser and marks every word from it right in the text — on any site, in those same three colours. It is also the easiest way to collect new words: they go into your deck while you read.
毎日電車で学校へ行きます。今日は友達と約束があるので、静かなカフェでご飯を食べます。
Any form of a word is marked: 食べます is highlighted because 食べる is in the list. Shift+click any word — marked or not — for its reading and meaning, and to add it to the builder. The marking can be switched to an underline, or turned off.
Anywhere on KanjiDraw — a dictionary entry, a kanji page's compounds, a JLPT collection, a reading-practice text. Every word carries an “Add to Vocabulary Builder” button.
The card keeps the word, its reading and its meaning in your language, plus audio. Tap it any time to open the full dictionary entry without leaving the page.
A review round shows the cards, then asks you to pick the right meaning. Each correct round advances the word one stage and its colour changes; a wrong answer sends it back to the start.
After 5 correct reviews with the waits served — 4 hours, then 20, then 48, then 48 — the word moves to Learned for good. The waits are the point: recalling a word a day later is what makes it stick.
Nothing has to be typed in: words come from the sections you already study in — and, with the extension, from any page on the web. Each brings its reading, meaning and audio with it.
Yes, completely — like the rest of KanjiDraw. It needs an account only because your words are saved to it and synced between your devices.
Kanji practice progress lives in your browser and works offline. A vocabulary deck is worth much less that way — you add words on a phone and review them on a laptop, so it is stored on the account and syncs in real time.
It is not trying to replace it. Anki is a general SRS you feed decks into; this is built into the dictionary and lessons you are already reading, so adding a word takes one tap and its reading, meaning and audio come with it. The schedule is a fixed ladder of five reviews, not a tunable algorithm.
A word graduates after 5 correct reviews spread over about four days. You can also mark words as learned by hand — both sit in the Learned tab, and kanji you have mastered in the practice modes are counted there too.
Yes — the free Chrome extension puts the same dictionary and the same word list in your browser. It underlines the words you are learning on any page in Japanese, and Shift+click looks up any word, marked or not. Anything you add there is in your list here straight away.
Yes. Meanings come in the language of the interface — the Russian site shows Russian glosses wherever they exist, and English as a fallback.
Yes — it is yours alone, and nothing about it is public. You can delete your account, and everything with it, from your profile at any time.