Tan Dash

Tan the tanuki does the running. All you do is jump, so one thumb is enough. Every run starts in world 1 and lasts until your hearts run out.

1. Read the sign. It says which kanji to grab: by its meaning in English, like “mountain”, or by its reading in kana, like やま.
2. Jump for that kanji. Kanji tiles roll in along the ground and through the air. Tap to jump, and tap again in the air to jump higher. On a keyboard, press Space.
3. Jump over the rest. Running into a wrong kanji or a tree stump costs a heart. The wrong ones are often look-alikes: 人 and 入, 日 and 白, 千 and 十, 右 and 左.
4. Keep the combo going. Correct catches in a row build a combo that multiplies your score, and every 6 correct catches open the next world, with new kanji.

When your hearts run out, the results screen shows your score, every kanji you caught, each linking to its page here, and the ones you mixed up.

Power-ups: kanji that do what they mean

Gold boxes hold a kanji, and catching one does what that kanji means:

• 大big: Tan turns giant.
• 上up: super jumps.
• 生life: an extra heart.
• 金gold: 500 points.
• 何what?: a mystery: you find out when you catch it.

Settings

Chill is a slower run with five hearts. Signs can be in English, in kana or a mix; in the mix, kana signs start in world 3 and only ask for kanji you have already caught, so a reading is never the first thing you meet. Sound can be switched off.

Tan Dash has 14 worlds. Every run starts in world 1, and every 6 correct catches open the next, adding its kanji to the ones before it, so world 14 opens after 78 correct catches in one run. Worlds 1 to 8 are the 8 episodes of The Travels of Tan, our weekly comic written entirely in N5, in order: each adds the kanji its episode teaches. The rest are game-only worlds for the N5 kanji the comic has not reached yet.

Every kanji below links to its page, with its stroke order and readings.