Eight mistakes almost everyone makes

When reading

• 1. Leaning on the order — if recalling か means counting "a, ka, sa" in your head, it is not learned. It has to come instantly out of order.
• 2. Keeping romaji too long — with a chart that prints romaji under every kana, your eye reads the romaji first. Move to kana-only material early.
• 3. Reading せんせい as "sensei" — an い after an e-row kana lengthens the vowel. It is "sensē". Likewise おとうさん is "otōsan", not "otousan".
• 4. Skipping the sokuon — read きって as "kite" and you have said a different word ("come"). The っ must get its full beat.

When writing

• 5. Writing small kana full size — きゃく (guest) and きやく (agreement) differ by size alone. Make it unmistakably half-height.
• 6. Ignoring stroke order — it feels like only the shape matters, but at speed the character collapses, and you lose the ability to read other people’s handwriting.
• 7. Telling シ and ツ apart by counting dots — both have two. The difference is the direction of the last stroke: シ goes up, ツ goes down.

In how you study

• 8. Starting hiragana and katakana together — the most common failure. Finish hiragana, then move on.

Half of these are about length: long vowels, the sokuon, small kana. Keeping in mind that duration carries meaning in Japanese prevents a good number of them.

Getting things wrong is not the problem

Nobody gets all 46 on the first pass. What matters is knowing where you fail.

The records page shows accuracy per character, which makes your weak spots plain. Errors usually cluster on three or four characters.

Re-drill just those. Running all 46 again spends most of your time on characters you already know.