The Japanese that changes a trip.
Reading the signs. Ordering without pointing. Asking for help — and understanding the answer that comes back. Ten minutes a day, and no prior knowledge assumed.
Free to start · Runs in the browser · Installs to your home screen
Everything you need, and nothing you don't.
Every item earns its place by being something you will really meet: a station sign, a konbini counter, a pharmacy, a price tag.
These stop being just shapes.
Built for the ten minutes you'll actually give it.
Stuff you'll actually use
Train stations, konbini, restaurants, pharmacies. Nothing is here because a textbook chapter needed filling.
It knows what you're forgetting
Each session is assembled from whatever is closest to slipping away, so ten minutes land where they count instead of on the things you already know.
A readiness score, not a streak
One honest number for how close you are to handling a trip unaided, weighted by what travel actually demands. Miss a day and it tells you the truth rather than punishing you.
Say it out loud
Speaking drills listen to you through the phone's own microphone and tell you whether what you said was what you meant. There is a silent mode for the train.
Watch it played out
Whole exchanges — the ticket window, the counter, the convenience store — run start to finish, in kana, once the alphabet is solid enough to read them.
What nobody tells you
Notes on the things that are not vocabulary: which queue to join, why nobody answers a phone on the train, what a shopkeeper's silence means.
Ten minutes, three moves.
Open it
The lesson is built the moment you start it — from where you are today, not from a plan drawn up last week.
Clear what's fading
Whatever is closest to slipping goes first. When there is room left, one new thing is introduced, and not before.
Reveal, then be honest
Again or Got it. That one answer decides when the card comes back — days away if it landed, minutes if it didn't.
Your trip is closer than you think.
Ikou runs in any browser and installs to your home screen like an ordinary app — no store account, no download. The Android build is on its way to Google Play.
On iPhone: open Ikou in Safari, then Share → Add to Home Screen. On Android: Chrome's menu → Install app.