The Kanji SITE was launched in September 1999 as a way for its author, Chris Jennings, to practice his (er, I mean, "my") kanji in preparation for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). It originally covered only the 80 kanji required for Level 4 of the JLPT, but has since grown to include a total of 1,000 kanji, namely the entire official syllabus for Levels 4, 3 and 2 of the exam.

Since the launch, features such as random testing pages, a search engine and an automated mailing list script have been added. The site moved from its free hostspace on Tripod to a professional hosting service in May 2000, in order to escape the tyranny of pop-up adverts. A Russian-language version of the site was born in January 2001, and efforts are underway to get it translated into other languages too.

Most recently, in August 2001, the visual design and information architecture of the site was given a complete overhaul; the original colour scheme (purple links on a dark blue background - what on Earth was I thinking?) gave way to a much brighter, clearer look. This time I've gone overboard on Lucida Sans Unicode, but at least it's easier on the eye.

The Kanji SITE is aimed primarily at people who are studying for the JLPT, and as such the kanji are organized according to the syllabi for Levels 4, 3 and 2 of that test. The JLPT Level 1 kanji will start to be added in due course - i.e. just as soon as I've finished detailing the Level 2 kanji. Patience, Luke.

It will soon also be possible to study the kanji in the order that nature (well, the Japanese Ministry of Education, anyway) intended, i.e. according to the government's official Joyo and Kyoiku Kanji lists.

Tech details for those of you interested in such matters:

Initially The Kanji SITE was lovingly hand-coded using nothing more advanced than Notepad (yes, that's right, the free one that comes with all Windows PCs), with a little "find and replace" help every now and then from Allaire Homesite. From Level 2 onwards, Microsoft Excel was used to tabulate all of the kanji information, and to create HTML pages from data-specific text strings.

Macromedia Dreamweaver was used to tidy up the link structure on the original version of the site by pruning broken links and orphaned files. Dreamweaver was also used extensively for the 2001 overhaul of the site. Graphics for the new version of the site were created using Macromedia Fireworks version 1 (English) and version 3 (Japanese).

The kanji on the original version of the site were created by using the text function in a Japanese-language version of Microsoft Paint, and were then softened using Corel Photopaint 8. The font used is a Windows one called HG sei....tai PRO. Now that I've found a Japanese PC version of Fireworks, the kanji on the redesigned site will eventually be replaced with properly anti-aliased graphics, which should be clearer when shrunk or stretched.

Thanks to:

The Kanji SITE, although ostensibly a one-man project, has benefited enormously from the assistance and advice of a number of other individuals. I would like to thank the folllowing people: My Japanese teacher, Ikeda-sensei, for her invaluable kanji advice; my web guru, Jonathan Swerdloff, for hosting advice and the automated mailing list script; Jason Sickles for the current version of the "random testing" script; Cameron Gregory of Bloke.com and Kris Treutwein for their earlier versions of random testing scripts; Anton Ivlev for his work on the Russian version; all the webmasters and homepage owners who link to the site; all those friends and colleagues who have helped with testing the pages or by offering advice on the design; and, finally, all of The Kanji SITE's visitors. I'm glad you seem to like it so much.