# Learn Japanese: Manabi Reader — user reviews > 142 indexed App Store user reviews of Learn Japanese by John A Ehlke, rated 4.50/5 from 226 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/learn-japanese-manabi-reader/id1247286380/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/learn-japanese-manabi-reader/id1247286380.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 172 · 4★ 26 · 3★ 10 · 2★ 6 · 1★ 12 ## Newest reviews (16 of 142) ### 3/5 — Good App but long lasting bugs *2026-08-09, version 3.11* Loved the app at first, due to how unique it was compared to other Japanese learning apps, but unfortunately new updates or features take months or even years to be updated or fixed. It’s not worth the subscription for me in the state it is now but hopeful that one day it will be improved. ### 3/5 — Abandoned? *2026-06-04, version 3.11* The app is useful but sometimes bugs out. no updates in a year? ### 4/5 — Awesome app with some nitpicks *2025-12-20, version 3.11* This is a super handy app for Japanese lookups! It even works on any web page so you can read whatever you want. That being said, my first impression of the app was kind of soured by the fact that I was instantly greeted with a subscription popup before I even had the chance to try anything. Also I’m not sure if there is a setting somewhere I’ve missed, but is it possible to view alternate definitions instead of whatever gets parsed first? I find this can be a problem with certain verb forms, like 変わってる gets parsed as “to be unusual” rather than a form of 変わる. Anyhow, really like the app and keep up the good work! ### 4/5 — More effective than Anki! A bit buggy *2025-08-09, version 3.11* I love this app! For me, it’s been more effective than Anki in increasing my comprehension, because there’s more of a tangible connection to topics that I care about. I highly recommend it for intermediate Japanese learners on a self-study path. I’ve used many Japanese study apps and found that their usefulness and/or interest expires pretty quickly. Not so with Manabi! I’m not very diligent/disciplined with studying, but I find myself using Manabi daily just because it’s fun and easy to read Japanese blogs with it. I tend to read blog posts from note.com and unfortunately Manabi crashes semi-frequently on that site. But the reading functions are so practical and handy that I use Manabi constantly despite the crashes. The Scan feature works great when I’m reading physical media. My kanji recognition is noticeably improving by using the “Familiarity” marking function. I use the “export to Anki” option to build decks; LOVE that the sentence context is included in that export! Future feature idea: I would love to see simple Japanese definitions of the words I select, instead of the English translations of words; this would make the app usable for AJATT method. But anyway, using this app regularly is expanding my vocab and grammatical understanding considerably. I’m even learning fun cultural tidbits, because the content I’m reading isn’t filtered through a lens of English translation. Manabi is such a great tool! It was obviously designed by someone with a deep understanding of what it takes to acquire Japanese language skill. :) ### 5/5 — Very good app *2025-06-24, version 3.11* Excellent app for Japanese learners at any level. I wish the dev would update some of the news/blog sources, but other than that it’s by far the best solution for iOS and macOS. I would give this app ten starts if I could. ### 4/5 — Nice resource *2025-06-23, version 3.11* Pretty good with one or two bugs but overall positive. The premium is cheap and the integrated flashcards is great. Not all the articles are good though, and the translation can be off, but I’ve had the most success with uploading my own epub books and using those. ### 5/5 — Extremely good *2025-06-14, version 3.10* Extremely nice and intuitive UI. Feature rich. Dev is an old school one person maintainer who instantly fixes any bug you tell him about. Very valuable work for language learners, I hope this grows to be huge!!! ### 5/5 — Perfect for reading practice *2025-06-10, version 3.9.2* I’ve been needed more convenient ways to get reading practice in for the JLPT. This app works perfectly for NHK news sites! I do a lot of studying on my computer, but this is my go to for finding a spare 5-10 minutes to read an article. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of its features so far, and I hope to use it more. ### 3/5 — Extremely powerful, baffling UI *2025-05-24, version 3.9.2* I want to like this more than I do. It seems like an extremely useful tool that I’m not smart enough for. Please add WaniKani support as well! ### 5/5 — Very good! *2025-05-20, version 3.9.1* Doesn’t work if you don’t update to IOS 18, but worth the update! ### 5/5 — Perfect reader *2025-04-23, version 3.9.1* I’ve been using Manabi for about 6 months now and can say that it’s the best tool for reading and learning Japanese on the apple eco system ### 3/5 — Problem Login *2025-04-20, version 3.8.2* Hi, I just purchased the app but everything got stuck on the first page, I can not open any single menu ### 5/5 — Great for intermediate learning *2025-04-18, version 3.8.2* Solid app that gets updates pretty regularly. Great translation tools for quick learning. My fav way to read Japanese news and literature for practice. ### 5/5 — App is great *2025-04-10, version 3.8.2* The app is great very happy I found this edit:whoops accidentally rated it 2 stars changed it ### 5/5 — If you’re learning Japanese you need this app *2025-04-09* This app is awesome. There’s nothing else like it. Satori Reader is great, but feels stale after a while, and this app lets you read any native content you want! Manga, eBooks, news, the Internet is your playground, and this app lets you read at a breakneck speed with automatic furigana for new words! I love that you can keep track of how many words you read and how many times you’ve seen them. The developer is incredibly responsive to feedback and suggestions. I’m excited for Mokuro and Netflix support hopefully coming soon! **Developer response:** Thanks for your support! I'm so glad Manabi helps you learn faster and more enjoyably. Stay tuned for more more... -A ### 5/5 — If you’re learning Japanese you need this app *2025-04-09, version 3.8.2* This app is awesome. There’s nothing else like it. Satori Reader is great, but feels stale after a while, and this app lets you read any native content you want! Manga, eBooks, news, the Internet is your playground, and this app lets you read at a breakneck speed with automatic furigana for new words! I love that you can keep track of how many words you read and how many times you’ve seen them. The developer is incredibly responsive to feedback and suggestions. I’m excited for Mokuro and Netflix support hopefully coming soon! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Never ending crashes *2025-10-22, version 3.11* Every time I try to open it, it crashes ### 1/5 — An app in need of a user experience *2025-09-27, version 3.11* After opening the app, I’m immediately met with two poorly laid out upsell dialogs (terrible whitespace and margins, unfamiliar macOS design patterns, etc.), back-to-back, before I even understand what value I’d get in purchasing them. Like an app that asks for push notifications without a clear reason before requesting them, this comes off as nothing more than an upfront cash grab, regardless of actual intent. Once past the dialogs, the first-time user experience is an utterly confusing list of random items. What does the app DO? There’s a tiny “getting started”… list? (the second item, “Mark paragraphs as read”, doesn’t seem to do anything when clicked) that first points me to “look up a word”, but clicking the link takes me to a list of “feeds” that are, at newest, 9 months old. What am I looking up? What is the app trying to get me to accomplish? I try checking the “Help” menu bar item, and am told, “Help isn’t available for ManabiReader”. No kidding. I love trying novel ways to improve my language proficiency, but this seems like an app for people who have prior information about what it does, and how it does it, built by a developer in need of a user experience designer. ### 1/5 — Incorrect furigana *2025-09-18, version 3.11* Incorrect furigana. If you make it so that only the furigana from the book is displayed, it does not appear correctly ### 1/5 — possibly the best reader app on iOS *2025-04-23, version 3.9.1* Great app that lets you read books and websites. Lookup is quick and smooth and the fact that you can create anki cards is a cool feature ### 1/5 — it keeps crashing! *2025-03-20* For some reason the app keeps crashing, whenever i try to turn it on it it just crashes immediately **Developer response:** Hi manga.nite - if this is working for you now, please update your review to let me know as this was fixed shortly after your message. Please let me know if it works for you now. Thanks and stay tuned for more -A — EDIT: I’ve now released 3.10 which resolves remaining issues. Please let me know if you still have any crashes, and reach out for a discount for your trouble. ### 1/5 — Where is costumers support? *2024-12-26, version 3.5* Beside crashing several times every time I import a new epub file, the app just won’t sync with iCloud, so any progress I made on Mac aren’t updated on iOS and vice versa. I am a premium paying user, and I’ve tried to get in contact with the support team to get these bugs fixed, but the team seems completely unresponsive as of now. I wonder if support has been discontinued altogether for this app ### 1/5 — New update is unusable *2024-07-31, version 3.4.2* Used to really like this app but the latest update constantly crashes when trying to mark anything as known. I'll change my rating if this is fixed. ### 1/5 — Unusable *2024-07-23, version 3.4.2* The app opens just fine, but nothing can be interacted with. Sometimes the “book” section can be extended, the Contacts can show up or load indefinitely. ### 1/5 — Good App but WAY TOO GLITCHY *2023-12-13, version 3.0.11* While I love the functionality of the app and would definitely like to support the author, it’s just way to glitchy and buggy. It cannot handle moderate long text without lags and/or glitches. Edit: Reduced to 1 star… WAY TOO MANY BUGS. I was planning to only use the dictionary to add card to AnkiMobile… Even that doesn’t work either.. Each time you click the dictionary search bar and the app glitches out and get rid of the cursor… ### 1/5 — App not working *2022-08-13, version 2.3.1* I’m having the same problems as others with the app just not working. At first I couldn’t log on so I made another account. That worked for a few days but now I get an error when trying to save words to the flash card app. Normally the app is very good, especially for advanced learners of Japanese, but at the moment it is not being properly maintained so I can’t recommend it. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Amazing so far! *2026-07-30, version 3.11* I don’t have a ton to say other than the reader is a phenomenal tool. I adore the color coding, and I really love the flashcard integration. I mainly use Anki but I’m having a lot of fun reviewing cards in both apps. I just keep them separate and figure there will be overlap here and there. But that’s just helping to reinforce my vocabulary anyway. I grabbed the 1 year subscription and I feel like there’s a lot of value to be had here. I am massively looking forward to the manga support update, and I will be recommending this app to my friends (we’re planning a group trip to Japan in a couple of years!) ### 5/5 — Very helpful for Japanese reading *2026-04-21, version 3.11* Thank you for creating such a helpful app. I use it to read Japanese EPUB books, and it has been a great support in my Japanese learning journey. I really appreciate having an iOS app that makes it easy to read Japanese books and news articles. One issue I’ve noticed is that on my iPad, the app sometimes freezes and becomes unresponsive. I also understand that adding flashcards to Anki is limited to subscribers. While I understand the reason for that, I wish free users could have at list for adding new words. ### 5/5 — Wonderful app! *2025-11-22, version 3.11* Found this app after searching for other resources on reddit r/learnjapanese and cant be happier! This app has so many useful features and the developer is working hard to add even more exciting ones! ### 5/5 — Fills a gap for Japanese learners on mobile *2025-11-15, version 3.11* This has completely changed my approach to reading in Japanese. As an intermediate learner, I’ve known for a while it’s been time to get involved in reading more native content, but the process of looking up readings and meanings from physical books is honestly really tedious. And I can never seem to get my hands on material that captures my interest with furigana, especially because I’m more interested in nonfiction. I am aware of some tools that work with web browsers, websites that add furigana to text, and workflows for desktop/laptop users but as a primarily iPhone user those workflows didn’t work for me. And while furigana automation is great, nothing brought it all together like this app. All this is just to say I think this app fills perfectly a need I’ve had for years and I wish I found it sooner! I would honestly use it if it JUST displayed furigana with dictionary lookups when you tap the word. When I found out it also keeps track of your vocabulary and you can browse the web with it, I was blown away. This app immediately became a part of my regular study on a weekly basis now. The creator also reached out and interacted with me on reddit to ask about feature improvements and requests which gives me a huge relief that this isn’t one of the many abandoned apps, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store next. ### 5/5 — A great sentence mining option for iOS *2025-11-10, version 3.11* I have used a few different options since switching to iOS including Migaku but Manabi just flows better and with direct to Anki mining is perfect for getting extra reading in when out and about. With manga integration planned I’m excited to see where this app will go in the near future! Thank you for your hard work! ### 5/5 — Exactly what I was looking for *2025-10-30, version 3.11* I wanted something that would allow me to not only look up words in any web page that I was reading but also had the ability to send those words to Anki. There was nothing on mobile that seemed to fit this until I found Manabi. Now I can build out my vocabulary deck anywhere, anytime! Thanks for a great app! ### 5/5 — Great resource *2025-10-07* I’m beyond grateful, 学び has been with me since the start of my taking up kana a few months ago **Developer response:** Glad it's working out for you! I hope to add kana-learning features, too. Please contact me if there's anything I can improve for you, and stay tuned for many more improvements to come this year and next. -A ### 5/5 — Excellent *2025-09-05, version 3.11* Wonderful app. Excellent and does exactly as promises. Even when I had a brief billing error the developer was to quick to help and fix it. Updating in 2025: genuine thanks to the developer who continues to improve this app. I have downloaded many Japanese study apps and dictionaries over the years. By far, one of the best. ### 5/5 — Wonderful App! *2025-06-29, version 3.11* this is a really useful app developed by japanese learners for japanese learners! reading immersion is very important and helpful in studying, and there is no better app to use than manabi! this specific app also has a sister app, which is a flash card app that allows you to import words and phrases that you have found in manabi reader and create cards for studying them! it is great for mining, and the two apps pair together almost seamlessly. very nice and involved developer, i am highly impressed!! ### 5/5 — Manabi Reader *2025-06-27, version 3.11* I’m pretty much a beginner reader of Japanese. I love the range of reading levels and topics offered by Manabi Reader. The associated app Manabi Flashcards is super helpful for building my Japanese vocabulary skills. --- *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 2026-09-09.*