nowfound

Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to DAG-based Kanji learning through components

Hi HN I built this app while learning Japanese kanji after struggling to find a tool that showed how kanji are structurally connected through their graphical components. The core feature is a recursive DAG-style component graph (“Kanji Atlas”) that breaks kanji down layer by layer into radicals and graphemes, so you can visually explore how characters are constructed and related to one another. Demo at https://mykanji.app/components/kanji/鬱 I also built in a lot of my own opinions about how a learning tool should feel and work. Some features: 1. A kanji memory…

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

  1. 1IM

    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 · its alternatives →

  2. 2AF

    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 · kanjibyhand.com. · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Understand the elements that make up every kanji

    2024 · nihongo-app.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4
    Kanaji▲95

    Learn Japanese Kanji

    Nov 2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    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 · its alternatives →

  6. 6
    KanjiLens▲120

    Kanji Lens is a Japanese manga translator and learning tool.

    Jan 2026 · kanjilens.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    sketch-rnn model trained to write kanji.

    2018 · otoro.net · its alternatives →

  8. 8
    Learnji▲181

    Learn a new language using emoji 😊

    2017 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Study Japanese hiragana and katakana with this simply game

    2023 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Fun game to learn 1000+ Japanese characters

    2016 · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Learn Kanji by breaking them down to first principles

    May 2026 · mojimori.app · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Read Japanese kana in two weeks

    Aug 2026 · kanasensei.dev · its alternatives →

  13. 13
    AxoGo▲12

    The #1 way to learn Japanese Kanji

    2025 · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Study Japanese Kanji words with this simply game

    2023 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15NN
  16. 16
    QWANJI▲174

    Hey HN! I've built this bit of cuteware (software not solving a problem but just for fun) inspired from the patterns made by swipe typing on mobile devices. To me it seemed like the closest thing to an English version of Kanji and it would be cool to consistently recreate those patterns. The implementation is vanilla js to keep things simple (and from a bit of framework fatigue) I'm keen to see how people use qwanji. Any and all feedback welcome!

    2024 · byronicalpatrick.github.io · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Just for fun, I built a language learning tool. It represents Chinese and Japanese as graphs of characters, with connections indicating given characters can form a word. It can also decompose characters to give clues on how they're pronounced, analyzes words to understand which ones are commonly used together, and more. It's fully interactive, supports offline use, generates flashcards, has sentences from humans and from AI, and plenty of other features. Check out the README for details. https://github.com/mreichhoff/HanziGraph

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    The best place to start learning the Japanese alphabet

    2019 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Learn Japanese with every new tab

    2019 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20
    Douzo▲127

    Free Japanese typing practice organized by JLPT level

    Mar 2026 · typingdouzo.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Japanese dictionary app for iPhone and iPad with kanji lookup, example sentences, flashcards, OCR photo lookup, and a Safari extension for reading Japanese.

    2015 · nihongo-app.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Learn Japanese hiragana and vocabulary with cute characters

    2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    An iOS application to learn Japanese, the easy way.

    2019 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Feature-rich and beautiful Kana trainer

    2024 · kanaquiz.pages.dev · its alternatives →

Also compare

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →