Start Where You Are

Kumi does not make you sit a placement test. It trusts you to say what you already know, and it is completely fine if that is nothing (yet). Kumi quietly verifies and sharpens your starting point over time. There are two ways to start: tell Kumi directly, or import your history from Anki.

Most apps assume you are a blank slate and march everyone from the very first character, no matter how much Japanese you already carry with you. Kumi does not. We have enough faith in our system to sniff out what you genuinely know, so we can meet you exactly where you are. It doesn't matter if you're brand new, coming back after years, or already reading novels. Nobody has to pretend to start over.

That picture is what feeds your KMT in each domain, so getting your starting point roughly right means Kumi can put your study time where it actually helps.

The quickest path is to tell Kumi directly, right from the dictionary. Open any concept and use its menu to mark "I already know this", or select several at once and choose "Mark known". Kumi marks each one learned, seeds your mastery across every way of knowing that concept, and drops it into your reviews at a sensible starting interval.

It works concept by concept, within the domain each one belongs to, and it is fully reversible. You can reset a single concept, or reset your learning entirely.

Marking something known

1. 1

   Find the concept in the dictionary

   Look up any word, kana, radical, kanji, or grammar point you already know.

2. 2

   Mark it known

   Open the concept menu and choose "I already know this", or select several concepts and choose "Mark known".

3. 3

   It joins your reviews

   Kumi seeds your mastery for that concept and schedules it for review, so it stays fresh from day one.

If you have studied in Anki, you can bring that progress with you instead of starting over. When you first set up Kumi, or later from Settings under Knowledge, upload your Anki export. Kumi reads your reviewed cards, matches each one to the matching Kumi concept, and carries over your Anki scheduling so your review timing picks up close to where you left off.

Kumi keeps your Anki stability and difficulty and next-review dates for each matched concept, rather than throwing them away. For the ways of knowing a concept your deck did not cover, it adds a modest starting point so those still get gauged as you review. Cards it cannot confidently match to a Kumi concept are skipped rather than guessed, and your deck structure is rebuilt as saved lists so nothing feels lost.

Bringing your Anki progress in

1. 1

   Export your deck from Anki

   In Anki, export as a .apkg file, including scheduling information.

2. 2

   Upload it to Kumi

   During onboarding, or later in Settings under Knowledge, drop the file into the import panel.

3. 3

   Confirm any ambiguous matches

   When a word could map to more than one entry, pick the right one so your progress lands on the correct concept.

4. 4

   Kumi rebuilds your progress

   Your matched concepts arrive with their mastery and schedule, and your decks come across as lists.

This is why trusting you is safe. When you self-report or import, Kumi treats it as a starting guess with no confidence behind it yet. Your very first real reviews carry far more weight than the initial claim, so if you marked something you did not quite know, your level settles quickly, and it corrects upward too if you sold yourself short.

Kumi is watching far more than right or wrong while you review, which is what lets a quick claim get corrected so fast. What is mastery? explains exactly how that gauging works.