# NihonGO Dominos — Intermediate Japanese, daily > Japanese vocabulary, grammar, and kanji learning app for intermediate learners. (iPhone/iPad app by JUERGEN WOLFGANG HAMMER.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nihongo-dominos/id6768212843 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [JUERGEN WOLFGANG HAMMER](https://appshunter.io/developer/1896550447) - Category: Education, Reference - Price: Free - Rating: 5.00/5 from 2 App Store ratings · 1 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 17.6 · 751 MB - Languages: English - Released: 2026-05-15 - Data updated: 2026-09-08 - Monetization: free - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nihongo-dominos/id6768212843/reviews.md ## What is NihonGO Dominos? NihonGO Dominos is built for the intermediate phase of Japanese — the long climb from finishing a beginner course to reading everyday text on your own. A stretch where progress feels slow, and what helps most is rapid, repeated exposure to the building blocks of the language. —— ONE MECHANIC —— The whole loop is a domino tile. Tap to peek the back. Hold or double-tap to retire it. One thumb, on the train, every day. Tiles glow bone → amber → orange → vermilion as you cycle through them, and items you actually struggle with land in a Challenge Box for spaced repetition — only where it pays off. —— THREE PILLARS —— 語彙 Goi (Vocabulary) — 6,363 tiles across eight frequency tiers. Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, conjunctions, number paradigms. Every entry validated against JMdict. ~98% coverage of everyday text at the top of the pool. 6,926 example sentences, individually composed — every sentence built from words already in the corpus, and every one of them read aloud in a natural Japanese voice. A further 1,373 vocabulary entries ship as lookup cards, each with its own spoken example, so a tapped word in any sentence lands on a real card instead of nothing. 文法 Bunpou (Grammar) — 611 grammar patterns spanning JLPT N5 through N1, hand-curated under sensei supervision. One specific surface form per tile. Cross-checked against established grammar references. ~94–96% coverage in general texts. 漢字 Kanji (Characters) — 2,228 kanji from the JLPT pool unioned with the Kyōiku elementary set, ranked by a blended newspaper-and-encyclopedia frequency score. Each card has the glyph with colored radicals, kun and on readings, English gloss, a hand-written mnemonic, KanjiVG stroke-order animation, and compound examples that link back into Goi. ~95% coverage of everyday reading. —— TWO REFERENCE SETS —— 部首 Bushu (Radicals) — All 214 Kangxi radicals. Tap any radical to see the kanji that contain it. 仮名 Kana — 232 hiragana, katakana, and extended foreign-sound katakana, organized by row, vowel, and modifier. —— TILES THAT LINK —— Over 46,000 tap-to-jump links run through the corpus. In example sentences, follow any tappable word straight to its own card. In Kanji cards, the compound examples link back into Goi. The app is an integrated reading environment, not a stack of separate flashcards. —— WHAT WE DON'T DO —— No invented "Lesson 1, Lesson 2" curriculum — order is frequency. Tier 1 is what you'll meet first in real Japanese; Tier 8 is what you'll meet last. (If you'd rather browse by JLPT level, there's a toggle in Settings — same pool, re-bucketed: kanji from N5 all the way to N1 plus a beyond-JLPT set, grammar N5 to N2 with the N1 patterns in the frequency tiers.) No drowning in SRS queues. The main loop is rapid, repeated exposure by flipping tiles. The Challenge Box is a Leitner-style safety net for items you've genuinely struggled with — not the front door. No production drills. Recognition is the skill; production follows from input. No accounts. No tracking. No analytics. No ads. No data collected. No internet required after install. —— iCLOUD SYNC —— Your Challenge Box and study progress sync between your iPhone and iPad through your own iCloud account, so you can switch devices and pick up where you left off. The sync runs through Apple. We never see your data. —— FOR WHOM —— Built for serious intermediate learners. You can read hiragana and katakana, you've worked through a beginner course, and you want to push from "I can read simple sentences" to "I can read newspapers, novels, blogs, manga." If you're a true beginner, finish a beginner course first and come back. If you're already comfortable with monolingual Japanese dictionaries, you're past us. Everyone else — this is the tool we built because we couldn't find it. ## Key features - Vocabulary tiles with example sentences - Grammar patterns with JLPT levels - Kanji with stroke order animations - Integrated reading environment - Spaced repetition for challenging items - Offline functionality ## Recent user reviews (1 of 1) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nihongo-dominos/id6768212843/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Great job *2026-05-23* This app makes learning Japanese fun. If you like Dominos and tiles and you like understanding how things are written this is the app for you. You will enjoy this app and if you’re curious on how to write in Japanese, it is also a great tool for learning. ## Frequently asked questions about NihonGO Dominos ### What is the learning methodology of NihonGo Dominos? NihonGo Dominos focuses on rapid, repeated exposure to language building blocks through a tile-flipping mechanic. Challenging items are placed in a Challenge Box for spaced repetition, prioritizing recognition over production drills. ### How does NihonGo Dominos track user progress? The app does not collect any user data, accounts, or analytics. Progress is synced between devices via iCloud if the user chooses to enable it. ### Does NihonGo Dominos have ads? No, NihonGo Dominos is ad-free. The app is designed to provide an uninterrupted learning experience. ### What content does NihonGo Dominos cover? It covers 6,382 vocabulary tiles, 502 grammar patterns (JLPT N5-N1), and 2,228 kanji, all organized by frequency and JLPT level. It also includes radicals and kana charts. ### Can NihonGo Dominos be used offline? Yes, after installation, no internet connection is required to use NihonGo Dominos, making it suitable for learning on the go. ### How is NihonGo Dominos structured for learning? Instead of traditional lessons, NihonGo Dominos orders content by frequency, starting with Tier 1, which is most common in real Japanese. Users can also toggle to browse by JLPT level. ### What devices is NihonGo Dominos available on? Currently, NihonGo Dominos is supported on iPhone devices. iCloud sync allows for seamless progress between iPhone and iPad. ### How often is NihonGo Dominos updated? The latest version is 1.2, and it was last updated on June 20, 2026. Updates typically focus on refining content and features based on user needs. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 2.1 — 2026-08-27 THE KANJI CARD, REDESIGNED The kanji card now reads as one piece: the character sits close under its readings, the story shows at its full height instead of inside a tiny scroll box, and a long card scrolls as a whole. On iPad, every card that opens in the side panel is now exactly the same size, however you opened it — and in the light theme, a highlighted component keeps the rest of the character faintly visible around it. ONE HOME, ONE LOOK The bottom bar is now identical wherever it appears — including your progress dashboard being one tap away from every hub screen — and the light/dark mode follows you everywhere instead of flickering back when you return a page. FRESHER CARDS The card set is updated with months of corrections — refined grammar explanations, repaired example sentences, and newly recorded audio. AND UNDER THE HOOD Updating the app no longer risks showing a stale page from the previous version, and tapping and holding a tile no longer triggers the iOS text selection bubble on its neighbour. ### 2.0 — 2026-08-14 Version 2.0 — the grammar deck, finished. —— 109 NEW GRAMMAR PATTERNS —— The grammar deck grows from 502 to 611. The gaps that mattered most were the ones a learner meets first: これ／それ／あれ, joining adjectives with 〜くて, the な before a noun, もう〜ました／まだ〜ていません, and the three commonest connectives — しかし, そして, だから. The formal tail is filled in too, from 〜ざるを得ない through to the rarest N1 forms. Every one of them was written by a Japanese teacher and then handed to a second, independent teacher whose only job was to disagree. Where the two disagreed, the card was rewritten. —— EVERY EXAMPLE STILL SPOKEN —— All 611 grammar examples are read aloud in the same natural voice, stored on the device. Nothing here needs a connection. —— TAPS THAT LEAD SOMEWHERE —— Tapping a word in an example opens that word's card. Over a hundred of those taps used to open nothing at all, and a few opened the wrong word. They now open the right card, and where there is no card to open, the word is simply plain text rather than a dead tap. —— A BIGGER KANJI ON iPAD —— On iPad the kanji drawing shares the screen with the board instead of covering it — and it was rendering at half the size it should have. The components are coloured, and now they are large enough to read. —— GRAMMAR TIERS, REBALANCED —— The eight frequency tiers were uneven after the deck grew. They are level again, and no pattern changed the tier a learner already knew it by. Free. No adverts, no accounts, no tracking. Works offline. ### 1.2 — 2026-06-20 Version 1.2 — spoken examples, deeper links, light & dark. —— EVERY EXAMPLE, SPOKEN —— All 6,376 Goi example sentences — and every Bunpou pattern example — are now read aloud in a clear, natural-sounding Japanese voice. Tap the speaker on any sentence to hear it. Listening while you read is one of the fastest ways to make a new word stick, and it's all bundled for offline use. —— A DEEPER WEB OF LINKS —— The tap-to-jump links that tie the corpus together keep growing: over 27,000 links now run through the example sentences (up from ~18,000). Follow an unfamiliar word from any sentence straight to its own tile, and from a Kanji card's compounds back into Goi — the app reads more like one connected environment than a stack of separate cards. —— MORE TO STUDY —— The Goi pool grew to 6,382 tiles (from 5,271), and the Kanji deck to 2,228 (from 1,201), now reaching across the full JLPT range. Same frequency-first ordering — there's just more of it. —— LIGHT & DARK —— Pick light or dark mode to suit the room and the hour. The whole interface has had a visual pass as well — cleaner type, calmer spacing, a more sleekly finished feel throughout, on both iPhone and iPad. No account, no ads, no tracking, fully offline. Found a bug or a content error? Tap About → Support inside the app. ### 1.1 — 2026-05-20 Version 1.1 — iPad joins iPhone. The whole app is now laid out for iPad in landscape. Tiles on the left; an ambient side panel keeps the open back-face beside the grid instead of overlaying it; ukiyo-e–inspired vignettes sit behind each pillar's home view. iPhone behaviour is unchanged. iCloud sync between iPhone and iPad now propagates in both directions — make progress on one device and pick up on the other within seconds. No account, no setup, no server. Also in this release: • Goi category picker expands to all 8 tiers in place, so jumping between Tier 1 and Tier 6 nouns is one tap, not two. • Bushu cross-reference fixed — tapping a kanji-in-pool chip now keeps its Examples and Radical chips alive. • Restored the "How am I doing?" progress meter (silently broken since the engine refactor). • Long-press to mark-known tuned for iPad's touch profile. • Daily-reminder toggle in Settings now persists across cold starts. Found a bug or a content error? Tap About → Support inside the app. ### 1.0 — 2026-05-15 No release notes. ## More apps by JUERGEN WOLFGANG HAMMER - [NihonGO Dokusho](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/nihongo-dokusho/id6778624634) All apps by JUERGEN WOLFGANG HAMMER: https://appshunter.io/developer/1896550447 --- *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 2026-09-08.*