# Nazoru: Read Japanese — Tap a word, keep the sentence > Tap a word, keep the sentence (iPhone/iPad app by GYOU GI.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nazoru-read-japanese/id6814808295 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [GYOU GI](https://appshunter.io/developer/6776104453) - Category: Education, Reference - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 18.0 · 34 MB - Languages: American English, Korean, Nepali, Chinese (Simplified, China), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan), Vietnamese - Released: 2026-09-30 - Data updated: 2026-10-12 ## What is Nazoru? Nazoru is a reading tool, not a dictionary. Tap any word in the text and its reading, pitch accent and meaning come up. Save it, and the sentence you were reading comes with it — that sentence is what you see again at review. A WORD WITHOUT ITS SENTENCE IS A WORD YOU WILL LOOK UP AGAIN Nazoru keeps the form the word appeared in, the reading of that form, the sentence around it and where you read it. At review the sentence comes back with the word blanked out, so the context helps and the answer does not. THE PARTICLE IS PART OF THE WORD 橋 and 端 look the same until the particle after them. Nazoru's pitch lines always include the particle, so the difference is something you can see. READ WHAT YOU WANT TO READ • 30 short pieces, six for each level from N5 to N1 • Paste your own Japanese text, or send selected text from another app through the share sheet. Each text shows what share of its words have meanings • In Safari, turn on tracing and any Japanese page becomes tappable the same way EACH LANGUAGE IS WRITTEN SEPARATELY, NOT TRANSLATED Choose English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or Nepali. They are not translations of each other: English notes cover how a word is used and its register, and point out words that sound the same; Chinese notes warn where familiar-looking characters mean something else; Korean and Vietnamese notes give the Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese reading, so words you already know show up at once. GRAMMAR AS PAIRS Grammar points and contrasts at every level from N5 to N1 — the two forms you actually mix up, side by side, with the one question that settles which to use. REVIEW Scheduling with FSRS-5, computed on the phone. One reminder a day at an hour you choose, only on days something is due (delivery is up to iOS). NONE OF IT COMES TO US The dictionary is inside the app, so reading, looking up and review work with no network at all. There is no account to make, no server of ours, no analytics and no advertising. What you read and what you save are never sent to the developer. THE SAME LIST ON A SECOND DEVICE, IF YOU WANT IT After the purchase you can turn on iCloud sync, and your vocabulary list, the grammar you put into review, and your review progress are kept in your own iCloud — a second device then shows the same list. It is off until you turn it on. Settings, the appearance you chose and texts you added yourself are not copied, and the developer cannot read any of it. PRICING All features are open for 7 days from the first time you open the app. After that the reader, vocabulary list, review, grammar and Safari extension keep working, with meanings for N5 and N4. Meanings and grammar for N3–N1 (6,439 more words) open either with a one-time purchase or a monthly subscription. Readings and pitch accent are free for every word. JLPT levels are unofficial: the JLPT has published no word list since 2010. Readings and pitch accent come from the Open JTalk dictionary (modified BSD); levels from Jonathan Waller's compilation (tanos.co.uk). iPhone and iPad, iOS 18 or later. Terms of Use: https://nazoru.glspace.co.jp/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://nazoru.glspace.co.jp/privacy.html ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **Subscriptions** | Subscription | Price | Period | | --- | --- | --- | | Nazoru — monthly | $2.99 | per month | **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Nazoru — one-time | $89.99 | one-time | ## Is Nazoru safe? Not enough ratings yet to assess Nazoru. ## Is Nazoru legit? Nazoru: Read Japanese appears legitimate, with a few gaps. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Nazoru is 65 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.6 — 2026-10-11 Grammar now appears in the Safari extension. Until this version it did not — tracing a word on a web page gave you the reading, the pitch accent and the meaning, but the grammar the app had written was only in the reader. The card carries it now: the JLPT level, the heading, and a one-line explanation. Which entries appear is decided by the same code the app's own word card uses, so the two cannot disagree. Entries at N3 and above show the heading and the line about opening them, the same way the meanings do. There is more grammar to find, at every level. N1 and N2 grew the most. The two free levels also gained a batch, and that batch is the part you can see before buying: のです／んです for explaining why, のが好き for turning a verb into something you can like, の中で〜がいちばん for picking the best of a set, and 場合は, 必要がある, the blunt prohibition 〜な, 予定だ and others. What went into N1 is what you meet while reading — ただでさえ, いわば, 〜とは裏腹に, とりわけ, あくまでも and the like. On top of the new entries sits a round of contrast tables — the side-by-side ones that show where two patterns that look alike part company, such as 〜てよかった against 〜ばよかった, or さぞ against 恐らく. When you update, the app shows you the feature pages that are new since the version you last saw, and only those. If nothing was added, nothing appears. Some words in the reader used to open a card with nothing on it, or with the wrong word on it. 〜んです broke apart and gave an empty card; 私はこの… matched the kana spelling of 箱; 怖くもなんともない matched 雲. All three were there before this version, and all three are fixed. ### 1.5 — 2026-10-10 Furigana, if you want it — kana set over the kanji in what you are reading. It is off unless you turn it on. Tracing a word to look it up is what this app is for, and kana over every word takes the reason for that away. In Settings there are three settings: off, every word, or only the hard ones — N2 and N1 words, plus words that are outside the JLPT lists altogether. That middle setting is for reading where you only stop at what you don't already know. The kana come from the same dictionary entry the app looked up to make the word tappable, so nothing is invented. Where the dictionary's reading would be wrong in that position, no kana is placed at all rather than a wrong one — 年 after a number is ネン, not the トシ the headword carries, and the same goes for 時, 人, 分 and 日. The vocabulary list is tighter. The pitch line there has become the reading followed by the accent number. A line drawn without the particle after it leaves two of the patterns looking exactly the same, and the number tells them apart in one character. The full line stays on the word card and in review, where the particle and the name of the pattern are shown with it. The sentence a word was saved with now marks that word in red, so it is clear at a glance which word the sentence is there for. Words saved from the same sentence are grouped. Save three words from one sentence and the sentence is listed once below them with all three marked, instead of appearing three times. Readings are now written in hiragana everywhere — the index, the vocabulary list, the label under your finger, the Safari card. Katakana is kept only for the mora boxes under the pitch line, where the row is a scale rather than something to read. ### 1.4 — 2026-10-09 Tap a verb and the card now tells you which form it is in — and what that form means. A verb in the passive, the causative, the causative-passive, the conditional or the potential now carries a line through to the explanation of that form, in the language you chose for meanings. When a form can be read two ways, both are shown. 食べられる is the passive and the potential at the same shape, and only the sentence around it decides which — so the card puts both up and says "Both readings of this form are possible here", rather than choosing for you. What comes after the verb is part of the form too. 〜ている, 〜てから, 〜てみる, 〜ておく, 〜てしまう, 〜ても, 〜てはいけない, 〜てください and the 〜ずに family now open from the verb you tapped, even though the helper verb after it is not a word you can tap on its own. The potential form of a godan verb has a name now. 書ける, 話せる, 読める and 行けない used to show no form at all, because the dictionary carries no separate entry for them. 行けない is also told apart from 〜てはいけません, which is spelled the same way. Some words were being split or looked up wrong, and that is corrected. 見ただけ was read as 見 plus ただ ("merely"), which swallowed だけ; 並べた showed 並ぶ (to line up) rather than 並べる (to arrange); 分かれている showed 分かる; 近づけたい showed 近付く. The dividing lines in Settings and in the grammar list are a little darker, so they are easier to make out. ### 1.3 — 2026-10-08 Grammar can now be put into review. Until now review held only words. A grammar point, or a contrast between two that are easy to mix up, can now be added from its page, and it comes back in the same queue as the words — one question a day, not two separate piles. The question is the example sentence with the taught part blanked out, so you answer by recalling the form rather than recognising it. Taking one back out asks first, because the record of what you have done goes with it. Text size is now a setting. Four steps, and it carries through the app's own screens, including the word card that Safari shows on a web page. The grammar tables have grown to 492 points and 146 contrasts, and the daily reminder now counts grammar along with words. Text that a page adds later can be tapped. The Safari extension used to read the page once, so the next stretch of an endless feed, a "read more", or a screen that changed without reloading stayed untouchable until you left reading mode and came back. It now picks those up as they arrive. Some cards were teaching the wrong word, and that has been corrected. そう after an adjective stem or a plain form is the grammar for "looks like" and "I hear that", not the adverb そう, so tapping it now opens that explanation instead of a meaning that never belonged there. 三十分 was being split and read as "three" plus "enough"; 経った was given the reading of a different verb; the kana はこ showed the verb for putting on trousers rather than the word for a box. Several dozen more of the same kind are fixed. VoiceOver now reads the interface in the explanation language you chose, not the device's — until now, someone reading in Chinese heard the screens in English. The text of words the dictionary does not cover has also been darkened; those are the ones you have to work out yourself, and they were the faintest on the page. ### 1.2 — 2026-10-06 Grammar can now be searched across the five levels. Type a pattern, or a word from its explanation, and the matching contrasts and entries come back from N5 through N1, so you can look one up without knowing which level it belongs to first. The wave dash that appears in the headings does not have to be typed. Three smaller things. The 年 in 十年, and characters like it, could be tapped but did nothing: after a number it is a counter, read differently from the word on its own, and the bundled dictionary holds only the latter. Tapping one now says that in a line, instead of staying silent. The iCloud sync row adds a line when something is actually wrong, such as the account not being available or the last exchange having failed, and says what to do about it. It still does not claim that syncing has succeeded, because from inside the app a quiet sync and a broken one look the same. 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User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-12.*