# Ringotan — user reviews > 83 indexed App Store user reviews of Ringotan by Daniel Pflughoeft, rated 4.90/5 from 567 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ringotan/id1633001064/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ringotan/id1633001064.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 522 · 4★ 39 · 3★ 2 · 2★ 2 · 1★ 2 ## What do users think of Ringotan? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Effective kanji learning system - 👍 Intuitive and easy to use - 🔓 No ads or paywalls - 💡 Customizable settings and integration with other resources - 🎨 Visually pleasing and engaging - 📚 Aligned with popular textbooks and JLPT - 🧠 Helps build muscle memory for writing kanji **Cons** - 🔍 Keyword hints not always clear enough - 🔀 Limited ability to customize word lists - 🔆 Light mode only, no dark mode option - 🔍 Difficulty identifying which kanji is being tested at times **Commonly reported bugs** - Occasional issues with stroke order recognition - Some kanji pronunciations not accurately represented **Most requested features** - Add dark mode option - Allow users to create and save custom kanji lists - Provide more detailed keyword hints before writing - Implement device sync to continue progress across platforms - Add notification system to remind users of upcoming reviews ## Newest reviews (17 of 83) ### 5/5 — Great app *2026-02-05, version 0.24.2* Very intuitive. I wish when speaking the word hint, it would alternate, instead of just speaking the first one. ### 5/5 — Pretty good *2026-01-29, version 0.24.2* Great for drawing kanji.i like the spaced repetition looking part. Maybe it isn’t? Use with Anki ### 5/5 — Useful & Fun! *2025-12-31, version 0.24.2* My kanji recognition has markedly improved since I added writing practice. Ringotan really helps to cram those little suckers into my aging brain - and make ‘em *stick*! ### 5/5 — The best kanji App *2025-12-26, version 0.24.2* I use this app literally everyday. It’s so easy to use and I love how it works. I’ve tried some other apps but I always gravitate back to this one. ### 5/5 — Good method *2025-12-22, version 0.24.2* So far pretty good. This method of learning the symbols and their pronunciation has been working well for me. ### 5/5 — Learning Kanji Has Never Been Simpler *2025-11-26, version 0.24.2* I'm a simple guy, I don't like having an app with a gajillion options like Anki. I prefer this a lot more the. The UI is a lot more intuitive. It doesn't have as much customization, but I don't care. This app is amazing! ### 5/5 — Almost as good as skitter and free! *2025-11-25, version 0.24.2* A very solid app. I couldn’t bring myself to fork out the $199AUD for an annual subscription to Skitter, so was over the moon when I found this. The Wanikani integration is a particularly useful feature. The only thing I wish it had was a free hand component rather than just the tracing. The app’s still in beta though, so hopefully this feature might come later. Anyway, great work Ringotan team. Thanks for creating such a cool and useful app. ### 5/5 — Perfect app *2025-11-23, version 0.24.2* No frills, no spam, just exactly what you need to build kana and kanji recognition and writing from the ground up. ### 5/5 — Super Useful! *2025-11-05, version 0.24.2* This app is very easy to use! I am surprised that it isn’t one of the most used kanji apps. I like how you can write the kanji characters with the stroke order, and how it’s organized by what material you want to learn kanji from (ex: Genki) and the app will teach you kanji according to the structure of your source. Super useful, and I’m glad it’s free! ### 5/5 — Excellent method for reviewing and learning kanji presented in KKLC order *2025-10-18, version 0.24.2* I’ve only reviewed the first 400 kanji and will be learning new kanji from around #500 onward but I really enjoy have vocab words (with their English translations) as prompts to write the kanji. I already feel like knowledge is deepening faster than simple recognition reviews or using only English keyword prompts. Of course, I’ve got a fairly good spoken vocabulary already down so it might become more daunting when I need to learn a lot of new vocabulary as well, but I can always slow my new kanji per day pace down. I like the fact that I don’t have to do anything other than study the kanji using methods I prefer and then use Ringotan to learn the writing as well as review it. With Anki, I’m always tempted to optimize my cards and then too much of my study time goes to doing that rather than to learning and reviewing kanji. As for my study methods, I read the hints and vocab in KKLC, then check out any Outlier dictionary info (in Yomiwa), and finally I look up the red key words in Kanji in Context to make sure I know those words as they help ensure an adequate knowledge of readings but using vocabulary. I have all of these resources ( and more) on my iPad so cross referencing is super quick and I can go through 8 kanji in 15-30 mins. Usually closer to 15 mins. I’ll study another set of 8 kanji on a break later in the day and then go through writing them using Ringotan later at night. Throughout the day I’ll do review lessons as they come up. (Usually waiting until 15-30:have accumulated.) I like my study resources better than WaniKani or a lot of RTK stories as most of the time the info Outlier presents plus KKLC’s notes help me to build more accurate knowledge of the components and their typical readings with will help me infer the above in unknown kanji. Outlier is especially helpful at seeing how the sound components work in Japanese and reading I wouldn’t have thought connected I now understand the connections. The only thing I would change about Ringotan is being able to select my own vocab prompts — but unless there were a super fast way to do this it would get me bogged down in optimizing my cards rather than studying and reviewing. For now, I make a mental note of the most important vocab words I remember if they don’t happen to be represented by the ones that Ringotan displays. And this seems to be working well enough for me. ### 5/5 — the ONLY app for learning kanji *2025-10-10, version 0.24.2* nothing fancy or flashy just gets right down to it. rly helpful for memorization without being too grating. not too unforgiving to the point that it’s frustrating. all around good time, would recommend! ### 5/5 — So good *2025-09-20, version 0.24.2* How is an app this good free? ### 5/5 — No ads, simple yet effective *2025-09-16, version 0.24.2* No ads, no promotion, just simple basic learning with a nice little algorithm ### 5/5 — Fun and intuitive *2025-08-13* I’ve been wanting to go back and relearn Japanese for a long time so my grandmother isn’t disappointed with me when never I visit her and Ringotan has been great in helping me refresh and go through the building blocks again. Great way to learn Japanese writing. ### 5/5 — Finally *2025-08-07, version 0.24.2* Foolproof method for learning kanji and remembering them! I recommend choosing the Wanikani integration or Remembering The Kanji Heisig option so you start with the visually simplest kanji first. ### 5/5 — Very helpful *2025-07-17, version 0.24.2* This is a really helpful, easy to use app. It allows me to practice hiragana which in turn helps me memorise them. The user interface is pleasantly simple, with no ads and no gamification. It just does what it sets out to do, and does it well. ### 5/5 — So good! *2025-07-12, version 0.24.2* A great app to learn kanji. I’m working on my kanji now and I’ve already improved so much from knowing about 5 to over 20 in 2 days! I’d recommend studying here and then writing down what you can remember. Definitely recommend. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 2/5 — Confusing *2026-06-29* I’m sure this helps a lot of people but is very frustrating. The dots get very confusing and both the pace and repetition styles get frustrating. If you happen to have any learning disability or neurodivergent condition this app can be torturous. Between being too slow in some aspects while too impatient in others, plus the colored dots all over the place this is painful. Don’t buy anything here - just stick to getting a nice pen and notebook, practice a lot in sentences too. ### 3/5 — Interesting but lacking *2024-06-19, version 0.24.2* It has some interesting features but some design choices that made it unusable for me. The worst being a lack of support for dark mode and settings for people with less than great vision. Poor contrast in some places, forced white space in much of the UI. Does not respect increasing font size, etc. For me this was enough to delete the app, if it hurts my eyes to use then it’s no good for me. Other things that bugged me were things like only able to select one learning resource. I know I am not the only one using textbooks and online resources such as Wanikani and jpbd.io. Also, no way I could see to create and save my own learning list, I could select a lot of kanji from the jplt list for a custom study but I could not find a way to save it. On the really big plus side, no ads. If the UI had been designed better to support Apple’s in place mechanisms for vision impaired I could have perhaps dealt with the lack of customizability. If your eyes are great and you don’t a flexible and customizable learning plan then give this app a test run, it might very well work for you. If you are a more advanced learner using multiple resources I think you will also find this app too restrictive. Being free and without ads it’s worth giving it a try. Still searching for a well designed kanji writing practice app. ### 4/5 — Good but background is light-mode only, harsh on eyes *2025-07-29, version 0.24.2* If they add a dark mode option I would change my review to 5 stars. ### 4/5 — Super useful but some room for improvement *2025-06-04* I've shared this app fairly widely with friends who have liked it because it is really handy for building the muscle memory to write individual Kanji. There are a variety of small tweaks I would suggest (please consider voting on suggestions on the support forum!) but I think the biggest obstacles to this being useful to more people are: (a) You are provided a fixed list of words (spelled with kana) to cue you to write the kanji. You cannot reorder this list or add terms that are more relevant to your studies. (b) Because you are only ever writing individual kanji (which are frequently homophones) this doesn't help much with remembering how to actually spell whole words. Regardless it's an invaluable tool for learning to write but I've found I have to integrate it with something like Renshuu (with "write answers" turned on) to actually be able to apply it. ### 4/5 — Great app! *2025-04-15, version 0.24.2* My only suggestion would be adding a notification feature to remind you when you have reviews to do. ### 4/5 — i will give this 4 stars *2025-04-06, version 0.24.2* This app is really useful for kanji learning. And the best for this app is free and I use it for daily to improve my kanji also not boring using this app ### 4/5 — Almost perfect *2025-01-20* I love all the customization options, especially for ordering the kanji in conjunction with whatever text you are using. The only flaw is that the keyword hint would be much more useful before you write the kanji but there’s no way to make it display that way. The keyword only displays after you write it. The phonetic hints are not as useful, so it makes it confusing at times which kanji you are being tested on. ### 4/5 — Great Kanji Tool *2024-05-11* This app is very useful for getting in spaced repetition for learning Kanji. There is only one thing I would change that would make all the difference. After you get far enough in, the phonetic hint for the kanji is not enough. For example the kanji for 写真　has two characters that both give the “SHA shin” hint but each kanji’s first strokes start in different places. And there are several Kanji that are like that. Even if you know both in your mind if you start in the wrong place it will count it as wrong. If there was a way to hint that it is one character or the other this app would be 5 stars without question. ### 4/5 — It is helpful. *2024-01-18, version 0.22.2* Very challenging.it helps me to remember the stroke order. ### 4/5 — Great engine, would love some power-user features. *2023-11-01* My chosen app for practicing my kanji. It has a lot of amazing features and is by far the best that I’ve used. This is because it gets right to the point and teaches you the shapes and stroke orders in an effective way, and can do so with lists that align with your learning resources. The biggest thing missing is customizable on the SRS timings. I’d love to have down grain control like the review timing list in Anki, but having some ways to control the review periods and the speed of introduction of new kanji would be useful for my middle-aged brain. Also, I’d love to have a way to introduce my own kanji into the lessons. I have some vocab words and kanji that are relevant to me, but don’t appear in the pre-built lists. Being able to overlay my own kanji into or between preset lessons would be the dream, but I’d even take custom list management, especially if I could import the list from a simple file I can generate/manage on my own. Still, despite my feature requests, I still rate this over the many paid apps I’ve tried. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Best that I’ve found！ *2026-08-21* I downloaded sooooo many apps looking for a good Kanji teacher. I am glad I found someone on Reddit suggesting this. While it may not help you learn Kanji alone, it possibly could if you’re super dedicated?? I tried it out alone but wasn’t retaining anything even though I liked the interface. From another redditor, I decided to buy the Kodansha book and really commit to a specific method of Kanji learning. Ringotan lets you choose your method at the beginning and then quizzes you in the same order that you’re learning in the book. This has been working for me, and I, really enjoying it. Two suggestions that would make it slightly better…. If they would let you choose which words are at the top of the screen as example uses of the Kanji. Most of the choices they give do not exactly line up with what is given in the Kodansha book. I would like for it to be more particularly aligned. The other thing would be to allow for a shuffle option when you do a custom review. It becomes easy to memorize the order that the kanji will be given, and that context makes it easier to remember. I would like to be challenged on them out of context. Maybe there is a way to do this and I just haven’t figured it out? ### 5/5 — Great for lazy people!!! *2026-06-03* I have a hard time studying because I don’t like to repeat the same vocab or in this case kanji over and over. Here you can set it to show you different kanjis more often instead of practicing the same 5 for a while. ### 5/5 — Best thing ever *2026-05-23, version 0.24.2* Genuinely good ### 5/5 — Hope At Last *2026-05-11* I have been searching for an app like this for so long. My Japanese reading and speaking proficiency are business level, but when I need to fill out forms I’m helpless without my keyboard. I’ve tried drilling writing textbooks, but without a teacher to tell me where I’ve gone wrong I find myself learning bad habits instead of progressing! The app makes my brain actually have to recall the kanji and each stroke in order, and for the first time in years I feel like I might actually be able to write fluently one day. The only criticism I could have is that sometimes the program is a little too kind (I wrote what should have been a diagonal stroke vertical, but it counted it as correct). But I prefer this over the app being so particular that even correctly written strokes could be counted as wrong , which I’ve encountered in other kanji learning apps. Realistically, I don’t have any expectations that I’ll learn how to write beautifully from this app. At this point I’m just grateful for the chance to lay a foundation down, which can always be made more beautiful later. But we’ll see! ### 5/5 — fun and useful *2026-05-11, version 0.24.2* I’m only 2 lessons in, and it’s already helped me memorize common kanji more than the green owl. ### 5/5 — Wonderful app, only one... complaint *2026-05-09* This is a really great app, simple and straight to the point, not a single ad! The only warning I’ll give is that the home page has the most terrifying cartoon apple I’ve ever seen, and worse (better?) his face will get less and less happy the longer you sit on the home page. In a way this is genius, I’m very motivated to study kanji and stroke order lest I incur His unholy wrath… I shudder with the dark thoughts of what He will do to me if I close the 口 in 四 before adding the ル. But all in all a very good app that I highly recommend! ### 5/5 — GOOD APP!!! *2026-05-05, version 0.24.2* very good app very easy to memorize easy teaching system very cool highly recommend!! ### 5/5 — kanji srs *2026-04-03, version 0.24.2* exactly what i was looking for to review kanji and it’s actually free. really easy to choose exactly where you want to start from, and then it schedules your new kanji and reviews for you. there’s even with an option to change how often you want to practice. looking forward to using this app to learn even more kanji ### 5/5 — Awesome app *2026-03-03, version 0.24.2* This is the only good app for learning kanji and kana that I’ve found thats actually free, with no hidden pay wall. Highly recommend! ### 5/5 — Great for reinforcement *2026-03-03, version 0.24.2* The writing recognition algorithms are really good. I was worried I’d fight the app but it is actually very relaxing. --- *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 2026-08-31.*