勉玉 · ben·da·ma · “the ball of effort”
Read it, write it by hand, say it — with real Japanese you can trust, pitched just past what you already know. Start exactly where you are.
New to Japanese? Skip the test — begin from the sounds. Studied before? A two‑minute check finds your level.
Every word traces to a real dictionary. Nothing here is invented.
The missing middle
Bendama lives in between. Each session gives you Japanese pitched just past what you already know — concrete enough to understand, new enough to grow. You don’t memorise lists. You understand a little more than you did yesterday, and each piece is a bendama you keep.
The engine · our learning model
Under every lesson is a model we built on two axes. One is how demanding the Japanese is — measured on the JLPT scale you know (N5, N4, N3) and mapped to the international CEFR standard. The other is what you can do with it — from first meeting a word to composing your own sentence.
Every word, kanji, and sentence in Bendama sits at a precise point on that grid. So Bendama can always find the point just past you: hard enough to grow, close enough to land — the reach that earns the next bendama. Comprehensible input, made exact — and shown to you as a map, not a black box.
Two axes · every piece placed · nothing left to chanceWhat you can do →
What we build on
A system built to make Japanese honest, usable, and yours — from your first sound to your own sentences.
Every word, reading, and example sentence is traced to an open, licensed source. No AI guesswork, no plausible‑but‑wrong answers. If Bendama shows it to you, it’s genuine.
Trace hiragana, katakana, and kanji by hand in the correct stroke order. Compose your own sentences and have them checked. Recognising a word is the start line here, not the finish.
The reading support fades as you learn. You move up a level by showing you can actually use the Japanese — not by reaching the end of a list. Progress you can point to, because you proved it.
What you actually do
Ten ways to practise — each its own screen in the app — carrying you from first meeting a word to writing your own diary entry, and making it stick.
Plus particles and grammar explained in plain English — every level from N5 upward.
Say it out loud
Reading Japanese is only half of it. With Echo, a native voice speaks a line and draws its pitch — where the voice lifts and falls. You record your own, and your pitch appears right over the model’s.
Match the shape and you stop sounding like a textbook. Every take stays on your phone — nothing uploaded — and it’s kept, so you can hear how far you’ve come.
こだま Echo · record · compare · yours aloneThat’s the name: 勉玉 — ‘bendama’, the ball of effort. Sign in with your email, one code, no password. Free to start, and you can begin from the very first sound. Every effort, a small kept thing.