Mainichi
Learn Japanese, one prefecture at a time.
168 followers
Learn Japanese, one prefecture at a time.
168 followers
Learn 20,000+ Japanese words with a spaced-repetition system built for long-term memory. Playful, gamified sessions under 5 minutes a day — no boring textbooks. Mainichi skips the flashcard grind. Short, low-pressure sessions that fit into a real day — show up, relax into a round of vocab, and let your streak do the rest. Clean cards. Fast sessions. A progress bar that actually fills up. The interface gets out of the way so you can focus on the words.
Mainichi
The prefecture-by-prefecture spine is what pulled me in — I spend my days on a different version of this, turning places into journeys, so I'm curious how much work the geography actually does here. When you move to a new prefecture, does the vocabulary move with it — regional food, dialect, the words you'd actually need on the ground — or is the map mostly a motivational layer over one big word list? The first would be a lovely thing. Either way, solo-built and this considered is rare. Congrats on shipping.
Mainichi
@mystoryland Currently this is more of a motivation layer, a wrapper to make learning words feel like a journey, but this idea is also something I've been thinking about, so this definitely may come as a feature :)
Makes sense to ship the motivation layer first — that's the part that gets people to come back. If you ever make the geography carry real weight, the regional angle (a prefecture's food words, its dialect quirks) is where it'd stop feeling like a skin and start feeling like a trip. Nicely done either way.
The reason you built this — 2+ years of grammar but still missing the vocabulary for real conversation — is such an honest origin, and it's the exact gap I keep hitting in every language I've tried to learn. The thing I'd gently push on: words rarely stick as bare cards for me. What makes one stay is context — a short phrase or a tiny scene I can replay in my head, so the word arrives already attached to a situation. Does a Mainichi card ever show the word inside an example sentence you'd actually say, or is the atom strictly the single word right now? Even one natural collocation per card would, in my experience, do more for recall than another repetition of the word alone. Really lovely that it's solo-built and this restrained. Congrats on shipping.
Mainichi
@avantigrowthlab I totally agree! Currently it's only words, not tied to an example sentence, but that's definitely something that I'd like to add as it's easier to memoize the vocabulary when tied to a more real-life-like scenario
Makes sense — the "word tied to a real scene" version is where the retention lives; a word learned inside a small scenario sticks, a flashcard word evaporates. Whenever the example-sentence layer lands, that's the version I'd come back to. Nice work shipping.
This is super cool and I'd love to try it out once available in the Play Store! As someone who has downloaded way too many language learning apps throughout my life, this is definitely one of the most interesting! Will there also be learning of the writing systems or just straight into vocab?
Mainichi
@shaeofshadows Thanks for the feedback! It goes straight into the vocabulary, but if you don't feel super comfortable with hiragana/katakana, romaji (romanized version of Japanese language) is also include on each flashcard :)
the prefecture-by-prefecture structure is a nice hook, most vocab apps just throw everything at you in the same order. since Android is coming soon, will progress sync across platforms if someone switches, or does it start fresh on whatever device you're on
Mainichi
@galdayan Yes, the progress will be synced between both platforms, so you can use your account for both environments
@xpaczka good to know, one account across both platforms is the right call - saves people from having to rebuild their vocab progress from scratch. good luck with the Android release
learning it prefecture by prefecture is a nice hook, most apps just throw generic vocab at you with no sense of place. does the content touch on regional dialect differences at all (Kansai-ben vs standard Tokyo Japanese) or is it standardized Japanese wrapped in a geography theme
Mainichi
@omri_ben_shoham1 Currently, it's a geography theme wrapper, but it's a nice idea to expand more on the prefecture target language. Thank you!
The prefecture-by-prefecture progression layered on spaced repetition is a nice hook — most vocab apps just drop you into a flat deck with no sense of place. Two practical ones: if I miss a day, does the SRS just reschedule the reviews I owe, or does a broken streak reset my review queue and set me back? And can I seed it from words I already know so I'm not grinding beginner vocab to unlock the later prefectures?
Mainichi
@leo404
1. If you miss your learning day, the system does not adjust the schedule
2. Currently it's not possible. The idea that I've been exploring recently is to allow you to skip word - marking the word as "burned" so it does not appear in the review queue anymore. I think this could give some boost to the non-entry level learners
@xpaczka The burn-word idea is exactly what would keep a non-beginner from bouncing; grinding through vocab you already know is the fastest way to quit a JP app. Since a missed day does not adjust the schedule, what actually happens to the reviews that came due that day, do they all stack onto the next session as one big pile, or are they redistributed so I am not hit with a wall after one busy day? That pile-up is usually what breaks the streak for good.
Mainichi
@leo404 Currently they stack, but that's a very good catch - definitely something I need to look into as I'd like the learning sessions to be more concise (not an hour spent, it might get boring fast for the user)