Alternatives
Products that do what Akari Study does
All-in-one Windows app for Japanese self-study
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I quit my job last year and worked mostly on this full SwiftUI rewrite of my Japanese reading app, Manabi Reader. The rewrite gave me the opportunity to expand to macOS (and without Catalyst so it feels extra native) and redo the data layer to be offline-first via Realm with iCloud sync. The biggest differentiators compared with other language study apps are that it tracks every word/kanji you read so that you can see how much of a given webpage/article you're already familiar with and other features/analytics built on that foundation; it automatically builds a personal corpus…
2023 · reader.manabi.io
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Hi HN, Just wanted to share a tool i've been working on to help with my own study routine. It’s a browser extension called Lingoku. The idea is simple: we spend hours browsing the web in English every day. This tool replaces some of the english words with Japanese vocabulary based on your japanese level (Similar to Toucan, but with a better user experience). It’s basically an attempt to make the "i+1" method actually passive, you understand the sentence because it's mostly english, but you pick up Japanese words naturally from the context. It uses an LLM in the backend to make sure the…
Dec 2025 · lingoku.ai
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The idea is actually quite simple. As a Japanese learner and a coder, I've always wanted there to be an open-source, 100% free for learning Japanese, similar to Monkeytype in the typing community. Unfortunately, pretty much all language learning apps are closed-sourced and paid these days, and the ones that are free have unfortunately been abandoned. But of course, just creating yet another language learning app was not enough - there has to be a unique selling point. And then I thought to myself: why not make it crazy and do what no other language learning app ever did by adding a gazillion…
2025 · kanadojo.com
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Hi HN, I watch A LOT of educational YouTube videos but wasn't forgetting a good chunk of the details because I was only really passively watching. So I made a tool that generates quiz questions/flashcards from YouTube videos, and uses spaced repetition like Anki or Duolingo to keep it in memory. Let me know if you find it cool/useful (or terrible ) or if you want to know a bit about the details!
2024 · platoedu.org
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I'm a long time lurker that recently quit my job to work on my own projects, a lot due to the inspiration from Hacker News. Now I have published my first serious project, an app for learning how to write Japanese characters. It's the app I always wanted but couldn't find when I was studying. It tries to be simple to use, you just start the quiz and go with the flow. There's no need to plan and manage your studies, and it uses spaced repetition for better retention. There's a promo page with more details up at http://www.kanjibyhand.com. It's only for Android so far. The free version includes…
2012
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Hey HN, it’s been 8 years since I posted on here about the launch of my Japanese dictionary app Nihongo [0] and I’m finally back with a new app: Nihongo Lessons! Think of Nihongo Lessons as the textbook to Nihongo’s dictionary. It’s an app for learning Japanese, specifically made for learners who are serious about becoming fluent, and want a guided set of content that will help them efficiently acquire vocabulary and grammar. The project came about when Adam Shapiro of Japanese Level Up (Jalup) [1] announced last April that he was shutting Jalup down. As a fan of Adam’s work I was bummed to…
2022 · lessons.nihongo-app.com
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2015 · nihongo-app.com
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As a student with a lot of notes I had a problem with studying fast for tests. So I created Notiv an AI study app that analyzes your notes and prepares you for test.
2025 · notiv.app
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Hey HN! I’m Alex, and one of my favorite ways to learn languages is by reading novels. Currently I’m reading 三体 (3 body problem), but one problem I've always had is it takes ages to look up words, and add them to Anki flashcards so I can remember them. 三体 is especially brutal with so much sci-fi vocab. That’s why I built Readly. I snap a pic of the page I’m reading, it loads the text in-app and lets me lookup words, add to Anki-style flashcards, or ask AI questions about the text, all in a single tap. It's a huge time saver. My specific learning strategy, if anyone wants to replicate it: 1.…
2025 · readly.ink
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Hi Everyone, I recently wanted to learn Japanese with duolingo but it kept giving me repetitive lessons. So I built an app that gives a variety of lessons from anime. You can try it out here:https://kanjieight.vercel.app/ Thanks everyone.
Nov 2025 · kanjieight.vercel.app
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