Learn Japanese vs Migaku
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Learn Japanese
Enhance your Japanese language skills by reading native content daily. This app offers one-tap word lookups with audio, automatic furigana, and flashcard creation to help you memorize new vocabulary. Track your progress with word and kanji tracking, and access curated reading materials or your own content.
- One-tap word lookups with audio
- Automatic furigana
- Flashcard creation and review
- Word and kanji tracking
- Curated and custom reading materials
- EPUB ebook support
- Offline-friendly
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Expand your Japanese vocabulary and kanji comprehension by getting in the habit of reading short, native content daily. Manabi Reader makes it easy to jump into interesting material without having to worry about your level: just one tap on any word you don't know to see its reading and definition. Tap again to add flashcards into Manabi or Anki. Don't waste time trying to find engaging reading material—a curated selection of news feeds, online magazines, blogs, folktales and ebooks are collected here for you. You can of course also open any webpage or RSS feed in Manabi Reader to help you through it. Make a habit out of getting your news in Japanese and you'll find your skills multiply. With even a few minutes each day, reading is essential to picking up Japanese. Memory is one of those things where it sticks best when you're having fun, so dive in! • Read native texts. • One-tap word lookups (with audio!). • Word tracking: you'll see how much of an article's vocabulary is already familiar. New words are highlighted for you. • Kanji tracking: we'll also track the kanji you're familiar with as you read articles. Check your progress within JLPT levels. • One-tap flashcard creation: memorize the words you look up. • Review flashcards from an article once you're done reading it. • Automatic furigana. • BYOC (bring your own content) via URL or copy/paste; or, choose from our curated selection of reading materials. • EPUB ebooks. • 3rd-party dictionary apps are supported. • Offline-friendly. • Respects your privacy like a web browser. ========================= The core app is fully functional without payment. Word tracking behaviors are limited to a subset as a preview. The companion Manabi flashcard app is limited to 10 flashcard reviews per day. Full word tracking functionality as well as unlimited flashcard reviews in the companion app may be purchased as a subscription. You may purchase a subscription, which will be charged to your iTunes Account upon purchase and will auto-renew within 24 hours prior to the end of the purchasing period. You can manage this in your Account Settings after purchase. Manabi Reader subscriptions are offered on a monthly or annual basis, with free trials—the annual subscriptions offer a discounted rate. This purchase supports the ongoing development of Manabi. We offer a substantial discount for students, educators, and parents. Privacy Policy: https://manabi.io/privacy-policy/ Terms of Service: https://manabi.io/terms-of-service/ Chat with Team Manabi: https://tawk.to/manabi
Migaku
This app helps you learn languages by making content interactive. Click words in subtitles or text to get definitions, create flashcards, and personalize study sessions. It focuses on high-frequency words for efficient learning.
- Interactive subtitles for YouTube
- One-click media-rich flashcard creation
- Personalized study sessions
- Data-driven courses for beginners
- Word frequency-based vocabulary learning
- AI sentence breakdown and explanations
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Learning languages is actually pretty simple: if you consume content you enjoy, and you understand that content, you will make progress. Period. Migaku (and its Chrome browser extension) enables you to do that: 1. Our courses take you from zero to 80% comprehension in ~6 months (10 cards/day) 2. We make text interactive: click words in your phone's YouTube subtitles to see what they mean 3. We let you make media-rich flashcards out of those words with one click 4. We make personalized study sessions out of the flashcards you create 5. Repeat! Whether you're learning Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Italian, German, Cantonese, Portuguese, English, French or Vietnamese, Migaku equips you with the tools you need to make real progress. Migaku requires a paid subscription to access its courses, features, and AI tools. Migaku – AI Language Learning Tool ■ How languages are really learned: If you want to watch movies in other languages, then you need to learn languages with movies. If you want to read books in other languages, then you need to learn languages by reading. As you spend more time doing the things you enjoy doing in the language you're learning, you'll build the unique skills you need to more easily do those things. Unfortunately, it's difficult to read books and watch movies in another language as a beginner. And that's where Migaku comes in ■ Data-driven courses for beginners The problem with most apps and textbooks is that they teach you what someone else thinks language learners need to know, and those things may not reflect what you actually need to learn to do the things that are important to you. This matters because not all words are used equally often: while a college-educated native speaker knows ~30,000 words, you only need to know ~1,500 words to recognize 80% of the words in modern media. Our flashcard-based courses teach you these ~1,500 words—the ones that are useful to everyone, no matter their goals—plus a few hundred basic grammar points. What makes our courses special is that every "next" flashcard contains only one new word, making Migaku's learning curve super smooth. You're always learning something new, but never overwhelmed. It's a fluent language learning approach. Migaku courses are currently available for Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean. ■ Turn subtitles and text into interactive language learning opportunities Migaku makes texts interactive: just click on words to see what they mean. You can also hear audio recordings from native speakers, reference images of the term, check example sentences, get an AI explanation of what the word means in context, have AI break sentences down for you word-by-word, or see a translation of the sentence that your word appears in. Basically, Migaku lets you consume content in another language as if you knew as many words as a native speaker. Our mobile app supports YouTube, manually pasted content, and physical content like books or street signs. Our Chrome extension supports web pages and several popular streaming websites. ■ Create custom study cards or import language flashcards Find a useful looking word while consuming content? Turn it into a high-quality flashcard with one button, and Migaku's spaced repetition language practice algorithm will create personalized study sessions for you. You'll be nudged to review these flashcards periodically, ensuring you remember them. Decks designed for the Anki flashcard app can be converted for use with Migaku, too. ■ Study anywhere, even offline Migaku's courses and any flashcards you make are available offline and automatically sync between all of your devices. ■ Learn multiple languages at once A single Migaku subscription gives you access to all of Migaku's languages and lets you use all of Migaku's features and AI language learning tools as much as you want. - - - Immerse → enjoy → improve
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: Learn Japanese at 4 against Migaku's 2. On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Learn Japanese sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Migaku sells 13 in-app purchases, starting at $14.00 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Learn Japanese against 4.4 for Migaku. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 233 and 377 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 74% and 73% positive.
Learn Japanese ships an update every 11 days, Migaku weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Learn Japanese | Migaku |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (233 ratings) — better | 4.4 (377 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 73.6% of reviews — better | 73.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 233 | 377 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 11 days | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 202 MB | 1.9 GB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | John A Ehlke | Migaku Inc. |
Customer experience
Learn Japanese
Migaku
Bugs and requests
Learn Japanese
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Migaku
Reported bugs
3 issues- Unable to create new accounts in the app
- Broken kanji course with empty cards
- Inconsistent behavior when switching between apps
Requested features
4 requests- Offline mode for learning on the go
- Expanded support for more languages
- Better integration with Anki and other SRS apps
- More customization options for flashcards and reviews
In-app purchases
Learn Japanese
- Monthly Subscription (Student)$4.991 Month
- Monthly1 Month trial$7.991 Month
- Monthly$7.991 Month
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- Annual Subscription (Student)1 Year trial$12.991 Year
- Annual Subscription (Student)$14.991 Year
- Annual Subscription$39.991 Year
- Annual Subscription1 Year trial$39.991 Year
Migaku
- Migaku Standard2 variants$14.001 Month
- Migaku Standard7 Days trial$14.001 Month
- Early Access2 variants$21.001 Month
Show 5 moreShow fewer
- Early Access7 Days trial$21.001 Month
- Migaku Standard$136.991 Year
- Migaku Standard7 Days trial$136.991 Year
- Early Access$179.991 Year
- Early Access7 Days trial$179.991 Year
- Lifetime$214.99
- Lifetime$289.00
- Lifetime$344.99
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Lifetime$359.00
- Lifetime$719.00







