Joshi: Japanese Particles

Japanese particles are not a list to memorise. Each one changes what the sentence is about.

You can know that に marks a destination and で marks where an action happens, and still hesitate every time. Understanding a rule and reaching for it without thinking are two different skills, and only the second one gets you through a sentence.

HOW IT WORKS

A natural Japanese sentence with one particle missing. Four options. Tap one.

学校＿勉強します。 に で を へ

Then, immediately: the sentence with the particle in place, what that particle is doing there, and – if you picked a particle people genuinely confuse it with – why that one does not fit here.

WHAT YOU PRACTICE

Twelve particles across forty distinct uses. は, が and を and the roles they play in a sentence. に and で and the line between where something is and where something happens. へ, と, も, の, から, まで and や. Then the same particles doing less obvious work: を with a route you walk along, を with a place you leave, に with the purpose of going somewhere, で with a cause, と closing a quotation, の turning a whole clause into a noun.

THE PART THAT IS DIFFERENT

Most apps can tell you that に is at 61%. That number does not tell you what to do.

Joshi tracks confusion pairs – two uses that get mistaken for each other – as a thing in their own right. So instead of "practice more に", it can say に ↔ で needs work, and then serve you the sentences where one is right and the other is tempting. Weak pairs are their own practice mode.

WHY THE WRONG ANSWERS ARE FAIR

A wrong option has to be genuinely wrong in that sentence. A particle that would produce correct Japanese with a different meaning is not a distractor – it is a second answer, and a question with two answers teaches you something untrue. That rule cost this app a confusion pair and a number of otherwise good sentences, and it is the reason you can trust the red cross when you see one.

READINGS AND HINTS

Furigana over the kanji, so an unfamiliar word never turns a particle question into a vocabulary question. The English translation sits hidden behind a tap by default, because with it visible you match the particle to the English and practice something else without noticing. Both are settings: never, always, or on tap.

Every sentence can also be heard. A speaker button reads it in Japanese, using the reading the catalog knows rather than a guess at the kanji. No network needed.

PROGRESS THAT MEANS SOMETHING

Mastery is capped by how much evidence there is, so three lucky taps do not read as mastered. Five levels, twelve particles and thirteen confusion pairs each get their own bar. Nothing here counts questions answered.

No coins, no gems, no energy, no streak you can lose by taking a day off.

FREE AND PAID

Levels 1 and 2 are free in full – は, が, を, に, で and へ, which is most of the particles in an ordinary sentence. One purchase, once, opens levels 3 to 5, weak-pair practice and the whole question pool.

SENTENCES, WITH AI

The Sentences tab has two modes. Explain takes any sentence – from a manga, subtitles or scanned from a photo – and shows what each particle does in it, named after a role from this app. Check mine assesses a sentence of your own: each particle is marked right, wrong or "works, but…", with a short why and the fix. Five requests a month are free; more come with the AI Help subscription: PLN 9.99 monthly or PLN 79.99 yearly, auto-renewing, cancellable in your Apple Account settings. Levels and exercises do not depend on it.

PRIVACY

No account or ads. Learning and progress stay offline. Sentences sends your text to our server, which does not store it. Optional anonymous statistics cover sessions, AI use and purchases, without text or an installation ID. Off by default; change your choice in Settings.

TERMS

Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://jd-japanese.pl/joshi/1.5.1/en/privacy.html