There are tons of Japanese reference and learning apps out there, so if this one looks familiar to you, don’t worry. That’s because it isn’t new at all. It’s been around on iOS since 2008.
But Japanese has undergone some major changes recently and is now the shiny, new version 4!
This app has a ton of new content:
- Built-in Japanese-English dictionary with keyboard, touch handwriting, and radical lookup support.
- Dictionary entries with furigana, romaji, English meanings, parts of speech, kanji breakdown, example sentences, common compounds, JLPT level, and the ability to add your own notes to (pretty much) everything.
- Text section for looking up longer selections of text, which then links to the built-in dictionary.
- Reference pages to help you learn:
- Hiragana
- Katakana
- Kanji
- Radicals
- Parts of Speech
- Classifications
- JLPT
- Kanji Kentei
- Lists showing your browsing history (what did I just look up?) as well as your own notes.
- The ability to turn any piece of info into a flashcard! No Anki needed.
So what’s new about it? The entire back end, which makes the app faster and smarter. The handwriting search feature and text reader tools were introduced with this version. And they’ve improved their SRS algorithm too, making it similar to Anki. You can read more about the changes on the Japanese blog.
Basically, the app continues to be a one stop shop for all your basic Japanese study needs – it could potentially replace two or three apps you currently use. Pretty convenient!
Platform: iOS and Android
Cost: Free!
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