Hi all — first post here.
Something I kept noticing with friends learning Japanese: single kanji, mostly fine. But 熟語 is where they’d get stuck — and reading wasn’t even the worst part. Just spotting which characters go together as a compound tripped them up.
So I made a little iOS app, ippun (一分, “one minute”). Each round drops an anchor kanji in the center with a few more drifting around it; you tap the anchor, then a floating kanji, to build a real 熟語. iOS only for now (Android may follow if there’s interest)
There are about 4,000+ compounds/熟語, beginner through advanced. Heads-up though: it is more for intermediate+ leaners. It assumes you can already recognize a fair number of kanji and want to push further — if you’re just starting out, it’ll frustrate more than help.
The vocab comes from JMdict, KANJIDIC2 and Tanos’s JLPT lists. Japanese is my second language (N1, 10+ years here), and I went through the whole list by hand with a Japanese friend, so the 熟語 aren’t random.
A few friends nudged me to put it out there. Would love your feedback — especially on which 熟語 I picked and the difficulty. If anything feels off, tell me.