# NAJEON: Learn to Read Korean — Hangul, letter by letter

> Hangul, letter by letter (iPhone/iPad app by Shinya Nagahama.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/najeon-learn-to-read-korean/id6820360494 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Shinya Nagahama](https://appshunter.io/developer/6815522397)
- Category: Education, Games, Puzzle
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 18.0 · 59 MB
- Languages: English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Spanish and 3 more
- Released: 2026-10-13
- Data updated: 2026-10-24

## What is NAJEON?

A puzzle for learning to read Korean.

**It is about the letters, not conversation**
People say you can learn Hangul in a day. You can learn to decode it in a day. Reading it without thinking, writing it, hearing the difference between 받침 — that takes longer. This app spends its time there.

**Match → hear → build → trace**
Line up three of the same tile and they clear. The first time you meet a letter, it is read aloud, you assemble it from its parts, and you trace the stroke order with your finger. After that it flows — no buttons to press, no cards to grade.

**It starts where Korean children start**
자모 (the letters) → 반절 (the syllable table) → 받침 (final consonants) → 어휘 A, B, C (vocabulary). 433 stages in all, from your first look at Hangul through to intermediate TOPIK words.

**Letters alone don't stick, so they come as words**
가 and 나 on their own mean nothing. Here they arrive inside 가방 (bag) and 나무 (tree) — the words that letter actually lives in. Every word carries its romanisation, its meaning, and, where it has one, the Chinese character behind it.

**받침 collapse into seven sounds**
ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅇ. Twenty-seven written finals, seven sounds. When 한국말 comes out as [한궁말], you hear it happen rather than reading a rule about it.

**Korea opens as you go**
Each stage you finish opens one photograph: a scenic site, a craft, a dish. Bulguksa in Gyeongju. Mother-of-pearl lacquer from Tongyeong. Bibimbap in Jeonju. 118 places, 56 crafts, 92 dishes, across all seventeen provinces.

**Why "najeon"**
나전칠기 is the craft of cutting shell into threads and setting them into black lacquer. Small fragments, laid one at a time, become a single picture. That is what learning letters is, so that is the name.

**What's free**
자모 and 반절 — 36 stages — are free. The remaining 397 unlock once, for a single payment. Not monthly. No advertising. Nothing is collected about you.

Inside: the full syllable table / 27 finals / 3,033 words / 1,799 Sino-Korean characters / 433 stages
Interface: English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ぜんぶ ひらく | $5.99 | one-time |


## Is NAJEON safe?

Not enough ratings yet to assess NAJEON.

## Is NAJEON legit?

NAJEON: Learn to Read Korean appears legitimate, with a few gaps. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for NAJEON is 65 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.


## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 1.0.3 — 2026-10-19

Now supports iPad. The painting opens out to fill the screen and the board sits in a single column down the middle.

• In the tour, tapping a place, craft or dish opens a window. Crafts and dishes were showing no photo at all (148 of 266 items).
• The build and trace panels now show the word's picture.
• Tracing is more forgiving. Short strokes (the tick on ㅊ) were far too strict.
• Tilt the device and each piece of the opening mark shifts colour.
• A brass streak on each swap, shell rings on each chain, shell shards when tiles clear.
• Tiles have the sheen of inlay. The colours that tell them apart are unchanged.

### 1.0.2 — 2026-10-16

Fixed a bug that could leave you stuck after tracing a character. The stroke count carried over to the next character, so if that character had fewer strokes there was nothing left to trace — and no way out.

• Added a pause (resume / restart this stage / back to the start). The old button jumped straight out of the stage.
• The mark on the opening screen now builds itself in stroke order, filling with shell as it goes.
• Redrew the mark the way inlay is actually made: cut seams, layered grain, brass wire.
• Tiles now have the sheen of shell. The colours that tell them apart are unchanged — only the surface changed.
• What scatters when tiles clear is shell now, not droplets.
• The build and trace panels show the whole word's pronunciation and meaning.
• Tilt the device and each piece of the opening mark shifts colour on its own.

### 1.0.1 — 2026-10-14

The interface is now in 13 languages.

• Mother-of-pearl artwork: every stage you clear adds shell until a lacquer piece is whole
• Tilt the device and the shell shifts colour with the angle
• Finished pieces can be polished out with your finger
• The build and stroke-order panels are glass now, so the board stays visible
• Stroke detection fixed — two strokes could be drawn in one movement
• Words of five letters or more no longer show as "…"
• Shell dust scatters as you write

### 1.0 — 2026-10-12

No release notes.

## More apps by Shinya Nagahama

- [MOJIKATANA: Learn Japanese](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mojikatana-learn-japanese/id6815522395)
- [Mathosaurus: Dino Math Trip](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mathosaurus-dino-math-trip/id6818814638)
- [MOJIHEBI: Kanji Snake Trip](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mojihebi-kanji-snake-trip/id6818999268)
- [JUTON](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/juton/id6822393664)

All apps by Shinya Nagahama: https://appshunter.io/developer/6815522397

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*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 2026-10-24.*