Best Japanese Learning Tools 2025 Award Show 🏆

[aehlke]

Here’s a list of apps rewarded by Bee for 2025:

I tested every Japanese app that came out in the last 2 years so you don’t have to, these are the best

Here’s the TL;DR of winners from the original author (Bee):

Manga == mangatan

VN / Game == Game Sentence Miner

Video == ASB or Migaku (if u wanna spend $$$)

Android == Jidoujisho

iOS == Manabi Reader

Best Duolingo Alternative - Renshuu

Original Reddit thread

Full disclosure disclaimer that I’m one of the “award winners” mentioned, but deep in the middle of the blog post and there are many other great resources mentioned!

Manabi Reader is my app, for iOS/macOS; it’s an immersion app that has its own flashcards and also integrates with Anki (WaniKani sync is planned). I’m currently working on finishing a big redesign update that also includes the ability to import custom Yomitan dictionaries including Wiktionary for monolingual lookups. The awards page has some screenshots of the work-in-progress. After that, I’m adding a manga mode I’ve been working on that integrates Mokuro and adds on-device manga OCR for sites like Bookwalker.

The other winners are great to check out too. My personal favorite winner is Lapis, the Anki note type.

[servette]

There is such an incredibly rich array of Japanese learning tools covered in that blog post, let alone all of the rest, that it’s hard to even decide where to begin.

I have set a goal for this year to do a better job of organizing my tools and adopting a manageable study routine.

Part of that will involve making some technology/platform decisions, as to-date I’ve been scattered between windows, ios, android, web vs. apps, physical books, et al, hoping that dedicating a piece of hardware to the task may help in improving my study habits.

That blog post can help me move in that direction, but wow, there’s so much to digest.

Key for me will be avoiding the temptation to do all of them, and rather to come up with a subset that seems likely to help me reach some concrete goals.

BTW, congrats on making ‘the list’ - and good luck on what must be a massive effort to update your app.

[Squintina]

It’s amazing that we can have such a large list of amazing learning tools, and yet there are still so many other amazing tools that exist that didn’t make the list.

I wish I had checked out Manabi Reader. It looks really good and it’s amazing that you made it. I’m already using Migaku, but it’s good to know in case I ever want to recommend alternatives to someone else using IOS.