Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Manabi Reader – Learn Japanese by Reading on iOS and macOS (SwiftUI)
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…
Manabi Reader is a Japanese reading app for iOS and macOS that helps learners track vocabulary and kanji comprehension across articles and webpages. It performs word tokenization and dictionary lookups entirely… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Manabi Reader – Learn Japanese by Reading on iOS and macOS (SwiftUI) launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
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 →
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Toku Reader▲111Read & listen to native Japanese and Chinese, tap any word
Jul 2026 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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- 5AF
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 →
- 6IM
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 →
- 7
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 →
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Hey HN, cofounder of Readwise here. We've been working on this cross-platform reader app for about 2 years, excited to finally share it in public beta. Probably the most notable thing that makes Reader unique is that it supports almost any content type you could want to save/read/highlight: * web pages * emails/newsletters * PDFs * ePubs * twitter threads * youtube videos (with transcripts) * RSS feeds With all of your knowledge content in one place, we built powerful reading and highlighting, as well as a bunch of novel triage/organization features, so you can actually…
2022 · readwise.io · its alternatives →
- 9
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 · its alternatives →
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Kann for Android▲171Learn Japanese vocabulary you care about!
2025 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 11IB
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 · its alternatives →
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Douzo▲127Free Japanese typing practice organized by JLPT level
Mar 2026 · typingdouzo.com · its alternatives →
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ReadHero▲149ReadHero 2.0: New Look, Smarter AI, Widgets & Book Search!
2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 15
Actually, it is yet another tool to learn a language through immersion (classic set of features, watch on youtube/netflix, read a website or book). It has a popup dictionary so you can click on a word and it will show the definition. Nothing new in that regard, except that it has been made with only Korean in mind and does not plan to extends to other languages. I was learning and still am learning Korean (now using my own tool to learn!). I initially made the tool for myself because none of the tools out there could correctly figure out what a word was in the text. And that's where the…
2023 · kimchi-reader.app · its alternatives →
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LingoTime▲76Language learning anywhere: from Apple Watch to the Mac
2020 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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Kana Words▲76Study Japanese hiragana and katakana with this simply game
2023 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
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The in-line vocabulary translator for iOS
2018 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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Discover and discuss great writing on Substack
2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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Kana Trainer▲65An iOS application to learn Japanese, the easy way.
2019 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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I spent ten years trying to write a novel. Every time I sat down, I'd write a sentence, decide it wasn't good enough, and rewrite it. The problem wasn't discipline — it was that I could always see what I'd written and go back to change it. I tried other approaches. Apps that delete your words when you stop typing — they fight fear with fear. That just made me panic. I wanted the opposite: not punishment, but permission. "Tomoshibi" is Japanese for a small light in the dark — just enough to see what's in front of you. You write on a dark screen. Older lines fade, but not when you hit return.…
Feb 2026 · tomoshibi.in-hakumei.com · its alternatives →
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ManGo▲75Anime & Manga tracker app for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch
2022 · rocketscience-it.nl · its alternatives →
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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 →