Hangman, adapted to five writing systems

In the spirit of the classic paper word game.

Guess a hidden word one character at a time. Six wrong guesses per word, three words you can lose. Or skip the guessing and say the word out loud to solve it outright.

Each script needs its own rules

English and Vietnamese use letter keyboards. Vietnamese folds the tone marks away for matching, so guessing ô reveals ố, ồ, ổ, ỗ and ộ — you are guessing the letter, not the tone. Thai gives you the full pool of consonants, vowel symbols and tone marks, with combining marks drawn on a dotted circle. Japanese uses a kana pool with katakana folded onto hiragana. Chinese has no alphabet to guess from, so it deals you a shuffled tray of candidate characters instead.

The clue is the meaning

Every word shows its English meaning while you guess, and the romanisation only after you solve it. That ordering matters: you are being asked to retrieve the written form from the meaning, which is the direction that actually builds production ability.

Say it to solve it

The "Say the word" button listens and solves the puzzle if your pronunciation is close enough, with a bonus for doing it that way. It is the fastest route through a word you already know, and an honest test of one you only half know.