# Kifuku: Japanese Pitch Accent — Pronunciation and listening > Pronunciation and listening (iPhone/iPad app by Jakub Dwojak.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kifuku-japanese-pitch-accent/id6809029465 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Jakub Dwojak](https://appshunter.io/developer/6801993670) - Category: Education - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 18.0 · 28 MB - Languages: American English, Polish - Released: 2026-09-09 - Data updated: 2026-09-14 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kifuku-japanese-pitch-accent/id6809029465/reviews.md ## What is Kifuku? Kifuku teaches Japanese pitch accent – the layer of the language that kana does not write down. 箸 and 橋 are both はし. 雨 and 飴 are both あめ. Nothing on the page tells them apart; only where the tone drops does. Most courses mention this once and move on, because it looks like a list of thousands of facts to memorize. It is not. It is mostly rules, and this app is built to show you which ones. FOUR SKILLS MEASURED APART Rules – where the tone drops in a word you have never seen. This one is measured only on words that are not on your review schedule, so it answers a question your memory cannot fake. Patterns – which of the four patterns a word has: 平板, 頭高, 中高, 尾高. Inflection – what happens to the accent when the word changes: 〜ます, 〜た, 〜ない, 〜て. Ear – where the drop falls in a recording. You can know the accent of every word on your list and still not predict a new one. An app that averages those four numbers into one has no way to show you that. This one shows it. EVERY RULE CARRIES HOW OFTEN IT HOLDS A rule without a number teaches false certainty. "Verbs are accented on the second-to-last mora" is useless until you know how often – so every rule here shows its coverage, counted on a 340,000-entry dictionary and visible to you, not hidden in the code. REAL RECORDINGS, NEVER A SYNTHETIC VOICE The system voice does not promise to read 箸 as 頭高 and 橋 as 尾高, and that difference is the whole app. So there is no text-to-speech here at all – only recordings by a Tokyo speaker. Where there is no recording, the button says so instead of playing something we cannot vouch for. This is the one place where silence is more honest than sound. FIVE LEVELS, NOT JLPT 1. Four patterns – the mora, the ○●● diagram, and what the four names mean. 2. Nouns – how the length of a word predicts its pattern. 3. Verbs and い-adjectives – the rule that does the most work. 4. Inflection – where the drop goes when the word does. 5. Compounds – what happens when two words become one. Accent does not belong to an exam level. 箸 and 橋 come up on the first day and are in no N5 list. TOKYO STANDARD, SAID OUT LOUD Everything here is the Tokyo standard – the accent of dictionaries, broadcasting and textbooks. It is one standard among several, not "Japanese". In Kansai many of these words carry a different accent, and that is not a mistake in either direction. The app says so on its own screens, not in the fine print. SPACED REPETITION THAT KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE Words come back on a schedule, because they are facts and facts fade. Rules do not come back that way – a rule is not forgotten, it is left unused, and that shows up in your mistakes rather than on a calendar. The two are scheduled differently on purpose. NO ACCOUNT, NO NETWORK, NO AI Everything runs on the device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is tracked, and the app works with the network off. Data Not Collected is not a promise here, it is a description. FREE AND PAID Levels 1 and 2 are free in full – including the first predictive rule, so you see both kinds of material before deciding. One purchase unlocks levels 3 to 5. No subscription. Sources are credited in the app: accent data from UniDic (NINJAL), recordings from the Tofugu and WaniKani pronunciation set. ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Kifuku Premium | $2.99 | one-time | ## Version history (last 3 releases) ### 1.1.1 — 2026-09-13 New material comes from your level. The ladder of stages now decides what you are shown, so nothing arrives from four levels ahead. Reminders keep watch over your reviews. The queue is rebuilt every time you open the app, so a longer break no longer leaves it empty. The icon says what is left for today. The number on the app icon is the same daily goal you see on the Today screen. From a check straight to the word's card. The answer screen now leads to the full card of the word you were just asked about. Check says what it is waiting for. The greyed-out button now has a caption: pick an answer, or tap the mora where the pitch drops. ### 1.1.0 — 2026-09-10 A legend for the hollow dot. The guide now says what a hollow dot at mid height and a dashed line mean: the drop is somewhere in there, and the answer you are looking at does not decide where. The same question no longer comes back the same day. A slip still brings the item back, but with a different screen. Large type sizes work on the whole screen. The question screen scrolls and the check button stays put. Readings stay where a word has them. Furigana no longer goes missing, and a Latin word no longer breaks in the middle. The family section shows all ten apps, Kifuku included. Every card opens the app page directly, and your own row stays in the section so the comparison is complete. ### 1.0.0 — 2026-09-09 No release notes. ## More apps by Jakub Dwojak - [Kaname — Japanese Grammar](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kaname-japanese-grammar/id6801993668) - [Katsuyokei — Conjugation](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/katsuyokei-conjugation/id6802813564) - [Joshi — Japanese Particles](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/joshi-japanese-particles/id6803144744) - [Kazoekata — Japanese Counters](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kazoekata-japanese-counters/id6803676309) - [Bunmyaku — Japanese Reading](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bunmyaku-japanese-reading/id6804188062) - [Kuzushi — Casual Japanese](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kuzushi-casual-japanese/id6805788146) All apps by Jakub Dwojak: https://appshunter.io/developer/6801993670 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-14.*