Kana review: price, free version and privacy

Our verdict

Kana is the easy first download for anyone starting Japanese: free, private and focused. Once you know both syllabaries, move on to a course or a kanji app.

What Kana is

Kana teaches the two Japanese syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, and nothing else. The listing describes customizable kana tables, drawing practice, quizzes with multiple choice, keyboard or handwriting answers, per-character statistics, lists and optional study reminders.

Who it suits

• Learning hiragana and katakana for free
• Absolute beginners in Japanese

Strengths

• Completely free: the listing says no ads and no in-app purchases.
• Handwriting recognition in quizzes checks that you can actually draw each kana.
• Detailed statistics for each character, including accuracy and answer time.
• No tracking and no data linked to you, according to the privacy label.

Limits

• It covers kana only, with no kanji, vocabulary or grammar.
• The last update was in August 2025.
• The description does not list audio pronunciation, so pair it with a course that has native audio.

What the free version does

Everything is free. The listing shows no in-app purchases and the description says there are no ads.

Price

Kana is free on the US App Store in November 2026, with no in-app purchases listed.

Privacy

The privacy label declares no tracking. Location, contact info, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics may be collected, but none of it is linked to your identity.

What the screenshots show

The screenshots show a card for あ with accuracy, average answer time and a stroke order diagram you can tap to draw, plus three quiz modes: drawing, keyboard and multiple choice.