Kanji: kana first, furigana, then bare

A Japanese word has two things to learn: the word, and how it is written in kanji. langweave teaches them one after the other. You learn the word in kana first; only once you know it does the kanji appear, with its reading beside it; and only after you have read it that way for a while does the reading come off.

Take 建物 (tatemono, building):

Stage	When	How it is written
Kana	until the word is known	tatemono／たてもの — or たてもの with latin spelling off
Furigana	from the moment it is known	建物（たてもの）
Bare	after 8 more sightings	建物

The three stages

• Kana. Every word starts here and stays here while it is new, introduced or learning — a word is never introduced in kanji. By default the latin spelling is shown beside the kana, for a beginner who cannot read kana yet; turn it off in the app’s Settings (Latin spelling → Hide) once you can. The latin spelling never appears beside kanji.
• Furigana. When the word becomes known, its kanji appears, with the whole word’s reading in parentheses after it. This is not a gloss — the reading appears exactly where the profile shows one and nowhere else.
• Bare. After you have met the known word 8 more times without a gloss, the reading comes off and the word is simply written 建物. The number is the setting form_bare_after.

Words that are normally written in kana — コーヒー, for one — have no kanji stage and stay as they are.

Ask for the reading back

If you meet 建物 and cannot read it, ask: “How do you read 建物?” That is recorded as a question about the reading, which puts the furigana back on — 建物（たてもの） — without touching whether you know the word. You earn the bare form again over the next eight sightings.

Asking what it means is different: that sends the word itself back to learning, and so back to kana. When it is not clear which you asked, the meaning question is recorded.

Why kana first

Reading kanji you do not know as words yet is two problems at once. Learning the word in kana first means that by the time the kanji appears, you already know what it says — the furigana only has to connect the shape to a word you know, and the sightings after that teach you the shape.