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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Shinobi Japanese

Learn Japanese with Illustrated Stories

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

  1. 1
    Kann▲173

    Master Japanese vocabulary you care about!

    2024 · kann.app · its alternatives →

  2. 2
    Fujiyama▲192

    Practice natural Japanese conversation in real-time with AI

    2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    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 →

  4. 4

    Practice Japanese through conversations

    2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Learn Japanese hiragana and vocabulary with cute characters

    2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6
    Learnji▲181

    Learn a new language using emoji 😊

    2017 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7LJ
  8. 8IM

    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 →

  9. 9

    App for learning Japanese, Korean and Arabic with mnemonics

    2021 · drmoku.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Learn the Japanese alphabet the easy way

    2019 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Study Japanese hiragana and katakana with this simply game

    2023 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12
    Stories▲169

    Master complex materials through short daily stories.

    2018 · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Learn languages via site and browser extension illustrations

    Aug 2026 · picturethewords.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Japanese Writing & Speaking App

    Nov 2025 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Learn Japanese with 1000 phrases and intelligent flashcards

    2016 · ling-app.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Learn JLPT-N5, JLPT-N4, JLPT-N3, JLPT-N2, JLPT-N1, Genki and anime Japanese voabulary with pictures. Download a free mini-eBook today.

    2021 · kumalearn.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Learn Japanese vocabulary you care about!

    2025 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18
    LanGo▲140

    Learn Japanese with 1000 phrases and smart flashcards

    2016 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19AF

    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 →

  20. 20

    Hi HN! I have been working on a webapp to keep learning German and today I want to share the first version. In the past, I have used books with "Short stories" to learn the language and I always wanted more stories so I thought I could put that into an app. Short stories are nice because the learner can attempt to understand words from the context of the text and it feels like less effort than a traditional language app. Additionally, the app format allows for practice questions at the end and you can use LLMs to check whether the answers are correct; so the users can check themselves. So…

    2023 · webbu.app · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Fun games, grammar, expressions, alphabet, food and places.

    2017 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22
    Kanaji▲95

    Learn Japanese Kanji

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

  23. 23

    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 →

  24. 24

    Read Japanese kana in two weeks

    Aug 2026 · kanasensei.dev · 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 →