Hey everyone!
I’ve been working on a little browser-based Japanese study app called 積読フレンド (Tsundoku Friend) and wanted to share it here since it has WaniKani integration baked in.
It’s a free, open-source reading companion that brings together a bunch of tools I kept wishing existed in one place while studying. No login required, your data stays in your browser, and it works on desktop and mobile. It also has three colour themes for now, potentially more if requested.
What you’ll find:
Bookshelf: Track your Japanese reading with status, ratings, and notes. Each book has its own vocab list you build as you read. Export the vocab lists as CSV for anki integration.
Dictionary Lookup: Search in kanji, kana, or romaji. Results show JLPT level and WaniKani level badges so you can see at a glance where a word sits in your studies.
WaniKani Integration: Connect your API token and vocab entries across the app show your WK level. Great for spotting words you should already know versus ones that are new.
Flashcards: Study your collected vocab with a built-in SRS. You can study by book, or pull all your words together and filter by JLPT level or WK level range. It comes with a pre-integrated N2 vocab flashcard (because that’s what I’m studying for atm).
Handwriting Recognition: Draw kanji and get instant recognition with candidates you can tap to look up. Obviously works better on mobile or if you have a wacom tablet, but still manages to recognise wonky attempts at writing with my mouse.
部首 Radical Picker: Browse by radical to find kanji by their components.
Reader: Read graded news articles with furigana toggle, right inside the app. N4/N3 articles come from NHK Easy News, N3/N2 from Slow Communication, N1 from NHK News (no furigana, shows an exerpt of the article but NHK News requires consent and cookies to grab the articles so the choice is yours). That way you always have a bit of reading practice at hand.
Kanken Practice: For the kanji lovers who want to prep for the famous Kanken exam. Short quiz sections for 漢字検定 levels 10 through 1: readings, writing, radicals, stroke count, okurigana, 四字熟語, and synonyms/antonyms. It’s obiously not like the real thing, but it will help you practice little by little.
会話 Conversation Practice: Basically write to Gemini and it will adapt to your level, reply somewhat naturally, and provide corrections after each message. It is an AI, though, so it can make mistakes. Gemini is relatively solid with languages and it’s a good exercise to have to come up with your own sentences.
As stated before, it’s completely free, no ads, no account needed. Your data lives in your localStorage, but you can export and import backups which provides, well, a backup, and makes it usable cross-devices. You’ll need your WK API to see the word’s levels and have the option to make flashcard decks according to WK levels.
Would love to hear what you think, what features you’d find useful, or what’s broken! It’s very much a work in progress, but all sources are cited on the app and all the files are on the GitHub Repo.
App here: TsundokuFriend
Toodles!