Konbini
You're the clerk at a tiny Japanese convenience store. Greet each customer, fetch what they ask for, ring it up and read the clock — all in beginner Japanese — and get to know the regulars and their stories.
Learn Japanese by Working the Register
Konbini puts you behind the counter of a Japanese convenience store and hands you the phrases a real clerk uses all day. A customer walks in and you pick the right greeting; they ask for onigiri and you find it on the shelf by reading its name; the register shows ¥150 and you tell them the total in Japanese; they ask what day it is and you read the calendar on the wall. Every line is written in hiragana and katakana only, and a strip under the screen shows the romaji and the English meaning of whatever is being said. The game keeps track of every line you meet: new and still-tricky lines show their translation, and once you have handled a line correctly three times in a row it is marked learned and shows the kana alone — so the help fades exactly where you no longer need it.
How the days work
Progress is counted in days, and there is no lesson to sit through first — you learn by serving. Day 1 already has you greeting, fetching six items, reading prices in hundreds of yen and making small talk about the weather you can see through the shop window; each following day puts four new products on the shelves and, for the first two weeks, adds a new kind of exchange — morning and evening greetings, heating food and bags, days of the week, dates, telling the time, making change, quantities, giving directions to a shelf, card or cash, the age-check button, the polite phrasings real clerks use, minutes and seasons, sold-out items — until the store is running the full mix of over 500 words and phrases and the days simply get busier. Customers also chat: they ask how you are, whether you're busy or new, whether something is tasty — and the right answer depends on what is actually happening in the store. Regular customers start coming back by name, and the weather outside changes what people ask for. Wrong answers cost the customer's patience — three mistakes and they walk out, but the day goes on. Your day is saved in your browser, so when you come back you pick up on the morning after the last day you finished. A Words button opens a phrasebook of numbers, dates and hours at any time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read hiragana already?
It helps, but every line has romaji and an English meaning under the screen. The kana on the shelves and in the dialogue are the same few dozen words repeated shift after shift, so the game doubles as reading practice.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Everything is done by tapping: tap a shelf, the microwave or the customer to walk there, tap the text box to continue, tap an answer to choose it. On a phone the game goes fullscreen when you start.
Is there sound?
The game has soft chimes, a door bell and the register, and if your browser has a Japanese voice installed it can read every customer line aloud. Both are off by default and can be switched on in Settings.