Kotoba Dōjō · Spaced-repetition vocabulary
Train words.
Raise a dojo.
A calm dojo for the words you are learning — gather them from anything you read or speak, review them the moment before you would forget, and watch each one build the world your samurai lives in.
A demonstration of the dojo: flashcards are swiped right and, with each mastered word, a new element of the dojo appears — a lantern, a bridge, a torii gate, a pagoda.
The daily ritual
Three swipes. That is the ritual.
A calm daily loop — the still center the rest of the dojo turns around.
→ Keep
You know it. It moves on — and returns days, then weeks, later.
← Revisit
Not yet. It comes back sooner, until it stays.
↓ Retire
Done with it. Off your list for good.
Ten swipes take a minute. The engine schedules the rest — and the words themselves come to you from everywhere you read and speak.
The engine
It knows the moment you would forget.
Under the calm sits FSRS-5, a modern spaced-repetition scheduler. It watches how each word behaves in your memory and brings it back right before it slips — so you review less and remember more. Substance over streaks.
One app, not five
Every word you meet, in one place.
Read a book and tap any word to see it, hear it, and keep it — it drops straight into your deck. Save a phrase mid-conversation the same way. The reader, the dictionary, the card-maker, the notebook: one dojo does the work of all of them.
Import a book, leveled to where you are. Tap any unfamiliar word for its meaning and sound.
One tap seals the word into your spaced-repetition deck — from a page, or from a conversation.
A quiet hand drafts an example sentence for every word you add, so it arrives in context.
When you want more than review
Step onto the training floor.
Some days you want to do more than review. The dojo has deeper ground to cover — a real conversation to hold, a rule to untangle, a word to say aloud.
Encounters
Hold a real exchange — order a meal, ask directions, talk your way through a scene. An unseen sensei reads what you say and answers back, in the language you are learning.
Consult the Master
Stuck on a rule? Ask, and a plain explanation comes back on the spot — grounded in the words you are already studying.
And drills that go where flashcards can not
Takeshi's Tale
A story that answers to you.
As you train, a story unfolds beside you — a fallen dojo and the swordsman who let its fire die. It is not a lecture. At each turn you choose, and the telling bends to your answer. Chapters open as your samurai grows.
Chapter One · The Cold HearthThe road ends at a gate that no longer closes. Beyond it the Kagaribi Dojo sits with its back broken, its great iron brazier black and cold. A man sits on the step, a sword across his knees, not cleaning it, just holding it. "The dojo is closed," he says without looking up. "You are standing in someone's memory. Mind your feet." He asks why you have come.
Why have you come?
The world
Progress you can walk through.
The dojo is not a mascot. It is a scene that changes as you train — halls rise, lanterns light, and coins earned in review buy armor your samurai actually wears. Thirty levels, each one visible.
The dojo, in your hand.
The iOS and Android apps are being built. Until they land, the dojo runs in your phone browser — and each code opens the page that will become its download.
Neither app has been released yet. These codes hold the address, not a download.
Before you begin.
- What does it cost?
- Free to start. Every new account opens with 7 days of full access, no card. After that you keep 25 new cards a day for nothing, and a paid tier removes the limit.
- Which languages?
- English, Spanish, German, Russian, French, Italian and Polish each arrive with eighty ready-made decks. The rest of the roster fills with the words you gather yourself.
- Can I take my words with me?
- Yes. Every card and deck you own, with your progress on each, exports as a single file — and deleting your account removes all of it for good.
Kotoba Dōjō is built by one person. It stays quiet on purpose.
Built for the long way.
Miss a day and nothing burns down. The kagaribi dims, the dojo waits, your words keep their schedule. This is a practice you return to — not an alarm that chases you.
The path is long. Walk it daily.
The gate is open. Your dojo is waiting.