# Tomoshi Japanese Dictionary — Say it and write it right

> Say it and write it right (iPhone/iPad app by Yuanyi Zhang.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/tomoshi-japanese-dictionary/id6786087040 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Yuanyi Zhang](https://appshunter.io/developer/6786087042)
- Category: Education, Reference
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 15.4 · 19 MB
- Languages: American English, Chinese (Simplified, China), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)
- Released: 2026-09-03
- Data updated: 2026-09-20
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/tomoshi-japanese-dictionary/id6786087040/reviews.md

## What is Tomoshi Japanese Dictionary?

Tomoshi is a Japanese-English dictionary built for producing Japanese, not just decoding it. It helps you say it and write it right.

■ Lookup
· Type Japanese, kana, romaji or English; candidates appear as you type
· 210,000+ entries, with English-to-Japanese reverse lookup for when you know the word in English and need the Japanese
· Results follow the spelling you searched, so 「明」 does not surface entries that look unrelated

■ Definitions you can use
· English definitions and part-of-speech tags
· Reading, pitch accent and a pitch-accent curve
· Conjugation table at a glance
· Example sentences with furigana that follows the entry you are reading

■ Help with producing Japanese
· Transitive / intransitive pairs: 「開く／開ける」-style verb pairs shown side by side with matching example sentences
· Near-synonym notes: how similar words differ and which one fits which situation
· Kanji spelling notes: what each spelling of the same word is used for

■ Remember it
· Save any entry to the wordbook and review it on an FSRS spaced-repetition schedule
· Listen-only drills: hear the word without seeing it and train your ear to react
· A small red dot appears when words are due; after a session you see your review streak
· Export and import the whole wordbook, export it as Anki-ready cards, or back it up daily to your own iCloud Drive
· Sign in and your wordbook and review progress sync between your phone and desktop, merging changes from each device instead of overwriting them

■ AI explanations
· Paste a whole sentence for a grammar breakdown with furigana; every word in the reading is tappable and leads back to the dictionary
· Expressions the dictionary does not cover are handed to AI, so you are never stuck at "no results"
· When the model is not sure, it says so instead of inventing a plausible-sounding explanation

■ Reading
· Public-domain classics from Aozora Bunko, graded by difficulty, with a furigana toggle — tap any word to look it up

■ Audio
· Entries, example sentences and whole sentences can be read aloud with cloud-synthesised voices

■ Privacy
· No account needed for anything; sign in with an email code (no password) only if you want the wordbook to sync across devices — no name or phone number collected
· Lookup history stays on your phone — I cannot see it; the wordbook and review progress stay local too (with your own iCloud backup) until you sign in, and deleting your account removes the cloud copy
· No ads, no third-party analytics
· Crash reports are sent by default, can be turned off in Settings, and never include what you searched
· Full policy: tomoshi.app/privacy/en

■ Connectivity
· The first launch downloads the dictionary data once; after that, core lookup works offline
· AI explanations and speech are the two features that need a connection

■ Free
Looking words up is free forever: the complete dictionary data, offline lookup and the error-reporting feature are free now and will stay free. Cloud features such as AI explanations and cloud speech are free to use today, within a daily quota. Every call to them has a real server cost behind it, so they will move to paid to cover that cost. Put simply: the dictionary is free; the cloud services that cost money to run will eventually be paid. I would rather state the rule from day one.

■ Where the data comes from
· Entries are based on JMdict / EDRDG and other open dictionary projects; example sentences partly from Tatoeba
· Verb pairs, nuance notes and reverse lookup are AI-assisted and cross-checked by multiple models
· Pronunciation and pitch accent are human-verified
· Full attribution in the app under Me → Settings → Open-source licences

■ Other platforms
Desktop versions for Windows and macOS are at tomoshi.app, with a select-to-look-up browser extension.

Independent developer · Free · No ads


## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.0.27 — 2026-09-19

What's new:
· Reading: Me → Reading. Public-domain classics from Aozora Bunko, graded by difficulty, with a furigana toggle; tap a blue word for a word card that links to the full entry. When signed in, your place in each text syncs across your devices
· Review scheduling now uses FSRS (the same open-source implementation Anki uses), based on each card's memory stability and difficulty; existing progress carries over
· Export to Anki: Me → Account → Wordbook data creates a CSV Anki imports directly — open it in the Files app and choose AnkiMobile. Exporting again updates the same notes instead of duplicating them
· Keep practising after the daily goal: the old "Daily review limit" is renamed "Daily review goal" (default 20), and a new "Daily review limit" (default 200) caps extra practice; both sync with your account
· Redesigned review cards: meanings grouped by sense, with JLPT level, common-word, transitivity and register tags on top; saved AI word analyses now render as word cards
· Listening practice stats; shorter part-of-speech labels (godan / ichidan in the English interface); the Wordbook opens faster when it's large
· Fixed: words already reviewed on another device are no longer reviewed twice; the daily allowance and streak merge across devices and can't be reset by a long-offline device; a failed background sync now shows the reason
· Privacy Policy updated: while signed in, the dates your account is used are recorded, solely to count daily active accounts, and are deleted with the account

### 1.0.25 — 2026-09-14

What's new:
· Your wordbook now syncs across devices: sign in under Me → Account with an email verification code (no password) and your wordbook and review progress stay in sync across every device you sign in on (phone and desktop). Without signing in nothing changes — everything stays on this device
· Sync covers the wordbook alone — saved entries, grammar points, AI analyses and your notes, plus review progress; lookup history and the AI analysis cache never go to the cloud
· Changes from several devices merge instead of overwriting each other: the same word saved separately on two devices becomes one entry with the newer review progress, and a word deleted on one device disappears from the others
· Your daily review allowance and streak are per account: cards reviewed today on each device add up, and the daily review limit in Settings is changed once and applies everywhere
· The account panel shows sync status: last sync time, items waiting to upload, and the reason for any failure. Sign out only stops syncing and keeps the local wordbook; Delete account also removes the cloud copy
· Privacy Policy and Terms of Service updated with new sections on accounts and cloud sync
· The top of the Me tab is now an account row that opens a dedicated Account & Sync page; the Wordbook review and Wordbook data settings moved there. The Wordbook page gains a sync row, and the model badge on AI result cards now shows a short model name
· English by default on non-Chinese systems: on a first install the English dictionary pack and English interface are preselected; both can still be changed separately in Settings
· Fixed: a false crash report after first install

### 1.0.21 — 2026-09-08

This release rolls up 1.0.19 through 1.0.21:
· Romaji lookup is no longer limited to the English interface or the English pack: type taberu to find 食べる in every interface language and with every dictionary pack
· The system back gesture now works inside Wordbook's Mastered, Start review and Listening practice screens — swipe from the screen edge to go back
· Less glow around text in dark mode: body contrast eased slightly, furigana one step brighter, bold text at a medium weight; light mode unchanged
· The "which spelling to use" card no longer appears when only the headword itself is left to show; the forward button in the results screen's bottom bar is now always present and greys out when there is nothing to go forward to
· The top-bar title in Wordbook, Lookup history, Browse and Settings now matches the Me screen
· Fixed: on a few words, the AI supplement card could turn the whole page blank; cards already saved on your device recover too
· Fixed: on an AI result card, tapping Share, Regenerate or Report could open a panel off the bottom of the screen
· Fixed: tapping a card's pronunciation button during Listening practice played both sounds on top of each other
· Fixed: the negative form of ある / 有る / 在る was shown as あらない; it is now ない and なかった
· Fixed: the language tag on reverse-lookup entries in Lookup history and Wordbook followed the current dictionary language instead of the language the lookup was made in
· Fixed: the favourite star in an entry card's top-right corner was not level with the title; the privacy-policy link in the Pronunciation section of Settings did nothing when tapped
· Fixed: typing a word the dictionary lists in both hiragana and katakana (ばか / バカ), or its romaji, could turn the whole page blank from the suggestion list under the search box

### 1.0.18 — 2026-09-05

This release rolls up 1.0.16 to 1.0.18:
· English interface. Switch to English and the interface, the What's new page and AI sentence explanations all come in English
· Romaji lookup (English interface or English dictionary pack): type taberu to find 食べる; conjugated forms such as tabeta are recognised too
· Hiragana and katakana cross-lookup: searching たばこ finds entries recorded only as タバコ
· AI-generated content is now labelled consistently: example translations, nuance notes, grammar cards and kanji glosses all say when they were generated by AI, and content generated live in the cloud can be reported
· Error messages are now localised explanations, with technical details in small print
· Fixed: the dictionary-update banner no longer covers the search box on the home screen; the home screen no longer scrolls slightly
· Fixed: kanji spelling cards were missing entirely with the English dictionary pack; senses without a definition now show the English gloss instead of a blank
· Kanji spelling cards no longer list spellings that are not in the headword; entry, grammar and AI cards share one header layout
· The iCloud backup note in the wordbook only appears when iCloud is actually available

### 1.0.15 — 2026-09-03

No release notes.

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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 2026-09-20.*