The East Asian Script Decoder
Like Duolingo, but for The East Asian Script Decoder. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
A short one: 9 levels across 2 sections, about 18 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Decoding the Visuals and The Shared Connection. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in The East Asian Script Decoder
- Korean characters are organized into distinct blocks
- Japanese uses a mix of complex characters (Kanji) and simple phonetic ones (Kana)
- Hangul uses geometric shapes like circles and straight lines
- Japanese phonetic symbols are notably more rounded and curvy than Chinese or Korean
- Korean blocks appear more 'constructed' than the flowing lines of other scripts
- The visual 'texture' of Japanese is inconsistent compared to the uniformity of Chinese
- Identifying Korean based on its geometric block structure
- Identifying Japanese by its mix of complex and simple curvy characters
- Chinese text consists entirely of Hanzi (characters)
- Chinese lacks the simple phonetic symbols found in Japanese or Korean
- The character 'の' (no) is unique to Japanese
- Identifying Chinese by its uniform density
- Using the 'no' character as a Japanese identifier
- The circle (ㅇ) is a hallmark of the Korean alphabet
- Chinese characters are composed of straight or hooked strokes, never perfect circles
- Japanese characters may be curvy, but they do not use the distinct geometric circle found in Korean
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives The East Asian Script Decoder the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
If you see a sentence that mixes very dense, detailed symbols with simple, loopy ones, which language is it?
Get it right to open this lesson and 8 more in the app.
Where The East Asian Script Decoder takes you
Unlock the visual logic of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. Learn to distinguish the three scripts at a glance and understand the shared DNA that connects them.
- 1
Decoding the Visuals
- Spotting the Difference
- How the Characters Work
- 2
The Shared Connection
- One Root, Three Branches
2 sections · 3 units · 9 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
The East Asian Script Decoder is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start The East Asian Script Decoder today.
Download Tomo, search The East Asian Script Decoder, and play your first lesson in under a minute.