Japanese

Furigana on the kanji you have not learned. Nothing on the ones you have.

Read the news, a novel, a podcast transcript or a video you would have watched anyway, with the readings sitting exactly where you need them and vanishing from the words you already know.

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日本語

Why it stalls

The reading changes depending on the word.

A kanji you have learned is not a kanji you can read. 生 alone has more readings than most learners can list, and which one applies depends on the word it sits in and sometimes on the sentence around it. This is why looking a character up in isolation so often leaves you no better off, and why reading with a paper dictionary is so slow that most people stop.

On the page

Furigana over each kanji group

The kana go over the kanji they belong to, not over the whole word, so you learn which part of 綺麗 is read きれい rather than memorising a reading for a shape. Okurigana stays in the line where it belongs. Set the size to taste, and have it disappear from words you have already learned.

今日きょうは月つきが綺麗きれいです

The moon is beautiful tonight.

One tap

The word answers you where it stands.

Not the first entry in a dictionary list, but what the word is doing in this sentence. Hear it, ask about it, or save it, without leaving the line you were reading.

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So it sticks

Every word you save comes back at the right moment.

Saved words join a review queue built on spaced repetition, and each one keeps the sentence you met it in. Your Japanese queue is its own: learn three languages at once and none of them bleed into the others.

How the review works

Japanese

Questions worth asking first.

How much kanji do I need before this is useful?

Less than you think, because the furigana carries you. What matters more is kana: if you cannot read hiragana and katakana, the readings above the kanji will not help you. Learn those first, then start with the graded stories.

Does it handle names and rare readings?

Usually, and this is where automatic furigana most often goes wrong elsewhere. Readings come from dictionary data where a document has it rather than being guessed from the character alone, which is what makes name readings and irregular compounds come out right more often than not.

Can I read manga or light novels?

Light novels yes, as EPUB, and they work well because the text reflows and the furigana has room. Manga is images with text baked into them, so there is nothing for the reader to tap.

Or learn another. Or three at once.

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