Kakera
Coming to the App Store

Hard words, one piece at a time.

A flashcard app for iPhone for the words that will not stick, in English and Japanese. AI writes each card on your own key; a memory model decides the day you see it again.

Coming to the App StoreiPhone, iOS 17 or later. No account.
The review screen: the front of a card with a word to recall, and a progress bar for the session.The review screen: the front of a card with a word to recall, and a progress bar for the session.

Review a word just before you would forget it.

Every word keeps three numbers: how stable it is in your memory, how hard it is for you, and how likely you are to recall it today. Kakera schedules with FSRS-6, the open model behind modern Anki, and brings a word back when that chance falls to 90%.

Each review you pass makes the curve flatter, so the gaps grow from days to weeks. Fail one and the word returns within the session.

90%100%Day 0306090
● A review each time recall reaches 90%- - The first review skipped
The back of a card: meaning, examples, and the four rating buttons, each showing its next interval.The back of a card: meaning, examples, and the four rating buttons, each showing its next interval.

You choose the next date, knowingly.

Turn the card and rate how it went. Each button says when the word will come back, worked out for that word before you tap.

Again1 min
Hard10 min
Good3 days
Easy9 days

A card that explains the word, not just translates it.

Paste a list of words and Kakera writes a card for each one: the meaning in Chinese and in English, examples, where the word comes from, its parts, the words it is confused with, and the phrases it lives in.

It runs on your own Claude or OpenAI key, kept in the iPhone's Keychain. Pick any model your key can use.

ephemeral

/ɪˈfem(ə)rəl/

adj. 短暂的;转瞬即逝的

Mnemonic
A mayfly is an ephemeron: it lives for a single day.
Etymology
Greek ephēmeros, “lasting only a day”, from epi “on” and hēmera “day”.
Collocations
ephemeral fame · an ephemeral pleasure
Confused with
ethereal, which means light and delicate, not short-lived.

木漏こもれ日び

Sunlight through the leaves of trees.

Japanese, with the readings on top.

Switch the deck to Japanese and every sentence carries furigana. Cards give the kana reading with its pitch accent, split the word into morae, and take the kanji apart. In a quiz, hiragana and katakana count as the same answer.

English and Japanese keep separate decks, reviews and stories. Hide the readings once you no longer need them.

A Japanese card: 懐かしい with its reading and pitch accent, and example sentences with furigana.A Japanese card: 懐かしい with its reading and pitch accent, and example sentences with furigana.

Everything else, briefly.

A home-screen widget with what is due, a daily reminder at the hour you pick, and quizzes after each session that feed the same schedule.

  1. Every word, one search away.

    Search the deck, filter by tag, and add more by pasting a list: Kakera writes their cards together.

    The word list with a search field and tags.The word list with a search field and tags.
  2. The whole card, and notes of your own.

    Meaning, examples, similar words and collocations, with room for what the textbook leaves out.

    A word’s detail page with meaning, examples and similar words.A word’s detail page with meaning, examples and similar words.
  3. Watch the forgetting curve flatten.

    How well the deck is held today, how mature it is, what will slip this week, and your streak.

    The stats screen: streak, forgetting curve and memory maturity.The stats screen: streak, forgetting curve and memory maturity.
  4. A story made of today’s words.

    A short passage that uses what you just reviewed, each word a tap away from its card.

    The daily story with today’s words highlighted.The daily story with today’s words highlighted.

Your words stay yours.

Kakera has no server of its own. What you study is on your iPhone and in your iCloud.

Read the privacy policy
No account
Open the app and start. There is nothing to sign up for.
Your iCloud
Your deck syncs between your devices through your own private iCloud database. We never see it.
Your key
The AI key lives in the Keychain and goes only to the provider you chose, when a card is written.
No tracking
No analytics, no ads, no third-party SDKs.