She didn’t pull blindly. That only broke the hair into smaller pieces, driving them deeper. Instead, she took a plastic zip tie, snipped tiny notches along its edge with scissors, and slid it into the drain. A few gentle twists, and the hair wrapped around it like yarn on a spindle. Then, slowly, she withdrew it.
First, she pried off the drain cover. It came up with a soft, wet pop . Beneath it, the darkness grinned up at her. She reached in—gloved fingers tentative—and felt the slick, cold tendrils. They were tangled like a spider’s nest, woven with soap scum and the ghost of last week’s conditioner.
Nora sighed, turned off the water, and grabbed her secret weapon: a pair of rubber gloves that had seen better days, and a flat-head screwdriver from the junk drawer. She knelt on the bathmat, the porcelain cold against her knees.
Nora stood up, peeled off her gloves, and turned the shower back on. This time, the water raced down the pipe like it was late for an appointment. She smiled, stepped under the spray, and made a mental note: Next time, clean it before it pools.
Because some battles weren’t about glory. They were about keeping your ankles dry.
The Kanshudo kanji usefulness rating shows you how useful a kanji is for you to learn.
has a Kanshudo usefulness of , which means it is among the most useful kanji in Japanese.
is one of the 138 kana characters, denoted with a usefulness rating of K. The kana are the most useful characters in Japanese, and we recommend you thoroughly learn all kana before progressing to kanji.
All kanji in our system are rated from 1-8, where 1 is the most useful.
The 2136 Jōyō kanji have usefulness levels from 1 to 5, and are denoted with badges like this:
The 138 kana are rated with usefulness K, and have a badge like this:
The Kanshudo usefulness level shows you how useful a Japanese word is for you to learn.
has a Kanshudo usefulness level of , which means it is among the
most useful words in Japanese.
All words in our system
are rated from 1-12, where 1 is the most useful.
Words with a usefulness level of 9 or better are amongst the most useful 50,000 words in Japanese, and
have a colored badge in search results, eg:
Many useful words have multiple forms, and less common
forms have a badge that looks like this:
The JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test, 日本語能力試験) is the standard test of Japanese language ability for non-Japanese.
would first come up in level
N.
Kanshudo displays a badge indicating which level of the JLPT words, kanji and grammar points might first be used in:
indicates N5 (the first and easiest level)
indicates N1 (the highest and most difficult)
You can use Kanshudo to study for the JLPT. Kanshudo usefulness levels for kanji, words and grammar points map directly to JLPT levels, so your mastery level on Kanshudo is a direct indicator of your readiness for the JLPT exams.
Kanshudo usefulness counts up from 1, whereas the JLPT counts down from 5 - so the first JLPT level, N5, is equivalent to Kanshudo usefulness level .
The JLPT vocabulary lists were compiled by Wikipedia and Tanos from past papers. Sometimes the form listed by the sources is not the most useful form. In case of doubt, we advise you to learn the Kanshudo recommended form. Words that appear in the JLPT lists in a different form are indicated with a lighter colored 'shadow' badge, like this: .
