I’ve been interested in learning Japanese for awhile now, so I had downloaded Duolingo to learn since it’s free. However, I wasn’t really grasping much from the lessons and after only a day of using it, Duo wanted me to start learning Katakana, even though I JUST started learning Hiragana. In the end, I just kept on redoing the same lessons over and over again to try to learn Hiragana so I could move on, but it really didn’t help much and I couldn’t seem to learn any of the characters.Out of curiosity, I started looking for other free Japanese apps and I stumbled upon this one and decided to give it a try. When I did the first Hiragana lesson, I found that it actually focused on just the characters so I could memorize them. That was just what I needed! I paid for the app after the first lesson because of how good it was and I was not disappointed. Because this app takes the time to help you learn each Hiragana character, I can now read Hiragana so much better than when I was using Duolingo, and the characters are sticking with me. I would recommend this app to anyone who wants to learn how to read Japanese, not just speak it (you can probably use Duo if you only want to learn how to speak Japanese).This app has been really helpful so far, and I definitely recommend at least trying to free lesson. I haven’t had any problems with it yet and overall, it’s a great app for learning Japanese.

So far I’ve only learned the Hiragana alphabet, but that’s a task in and of itself, and I’m so pleased that I’m inclined to write possibly my first App Store review. This app teaches in an objectively organized way, and makes review and progress tracking incredibly straightforward. While teaching, you are required to actually draw the characters. If you don’t do the strokes in the right direction or order, it corrects you with a teaching prompt. For this, writing style Japanese is taught. When they show letters otherwise, it’s in basic typed script. In the very beginning it’s a little confusing, but it seems the purpose is to teach you to understand both styles without having to think about it. In other words it’s a pro, not a con. You can try the first lessons for free so that’s great, and other than being told to pay to continue there are no ads/solicitations at all. To unlock the entire Hiragana set it was only $2, so a low risk one time cost for something you can try before purchasing. Everything I’ve been presented so far is accurate (e.g. no kanji presented as hiragana like in Duolingo). There’s no penalty for going at your own pace, so I’ve been going slowly and occasionally writing the characters on paper repeatedly to practice and drill it in my head. And it’s really working! I’m starting to recognize words I see in anime intros because I know the letters now. Overall, I give this app 10 stars and highly recommend it to anybody who wants to learn Japanese from scratch.

I’m just starting off learning Japanese. I’m bored at home and have always wanted to be trilingual. Usually, I hear good thinga about you-know-what owl app… that wasn’t doing it for me… all I remembered was the sounds and not how to write hiragana or katakana. If you enjoy a good mental challenge, this is the app for you. I can not stress this enough… this app helped me learn them super quick through repetition and forcing my mind to memorize them in a fun way. I’m barely a novice at japanese but I can confidently say that this is the best app to learn Japanese by far… I started off with the free level to learn hiragana… and the characters stuck… I finally was able to remember them, so I didn’t mind spending $7 for the chance to learn a skill that will pay off in the future through new friends or business opportunities. I would definitely recommend this app to anyone looking to geat into learning Japanese, whether it be for travel, business, or for being able to understand text.

This app does a great job at familiarizing you with Japanese. I learned Hiragana and Katakana separately before buying this app, but so I can’t attest much to the quality of those lessons. But the content afterwards is superb. Can you learn the entire language using this app alone? No, definitely not. You will need to supplement it with other material over time. But the breadth of what this app covers is amazing. You won’t learn every intricacy of the grammar, but it does familiarize you with the language very well and helps you acquire it on your own. After using it for a little while I noticed myself remembering Kanji at first glance and being able to form my own sentences without having to search anything first. I haven’t finished all of the lessons yet but I do think this app has helped me acquire a sense for the language, which all language learning tools should strive to achieve rather than lecturing grammar rules. It’s also helped burn so many things, like Kanji, verb conjugation and sentence structure, right into my memory to the point that it’s becoming natural. My biggest gripe with the app is with the review feature. I think the feature is great, but I wish it had more options. As it stands, you only have the option of reviewing lessons that the app thinks you need a review in (highlighted in yellow), or everything you’ve learned at once. Since the lessons are split into 6 sections, I wish there was a way to review only the lessons in a particular section. The review feature is great for studying, but I’d love more flexibility for it.