Comparison

大辞林 vs Nihongo

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

大辞林

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こちらのアプリには「大辞林 第三版」が収録されています。最新の「大辞林 第四版」は「辞書 by 物書堂」で購入することができます。 「大辞林」は、App Store での販売が30万本を超えるiPhone 用国語辞典のベストセラーです。洗練されたインターフェースが評価され、「グッドデザイン賞」と「電子出版アワード大賞」を受賞しています。 ベースとなる三省堂「スーパー大辞林3.0」は書籍版の「大辞林 第三版」(8,190円)に約3万項目を追加した、約26万5千項目を収録しています。もちろん2,700点にのぼる図表もすべて含まれており、書籍の新しい版が出版されるまで不定期にアップデートされます。 「大辞林」では辞書を読む楽しみを iPhone 上で再現するために、様々な工夫が凝らされています。インデックス表示では iPhone のマルチタッチを活かした革新的なインターフェースが「言葉に出会う」楽しみをもたらしてくれます。また、解説の中に含まれる、知らない言葉、興味を引く言葉も指でなぞって選択するだけでジャンプすることができます。 解説文は物書堂オリジナルのレイアウトエンジンによって美しい縦組で表示されます。ピンチ操作で拡大表示すれば、難しい漢字も確実に確認することができます。 すべてのデータがインストールされるため、使用時にネットワーク接続が不要で通信費用もかかりません。 「大辞林」には私たちが誇りに思う、すばらしい日本語がぎっしり詰まっています。「大辞林」を通して日本語のすばらしさを再発見していただけると思います。 主な機能は以下の通りです。 - 物書堂独自のレイアウトエンジンによる高速表示 - 前方/後方/完全一致検索 - 見出/慣用句/用例検索 - パターン検索 - 手書き検索 - インデックス機能(すべて/五十音/季語/ABC略語/人名/地名/作品名/動物/植物/芸術・芸能/四字熟語/故事成語/慣用句・ことわざ/凡例) - なぞってジャンプ®機能 - コピー&ペースト(長押しでコピーすることができます) - 項目内検索 - スワイプによる前後の項目の表示 - ブックマーク機能(日付や見出しでのソート、自由な並べ替え) - iCloudを使ったブックマークの同期 - 表示履歴および検索履歴 - 3D Touchでクイックアクション - 3D TouchでPeekとPop - iPadにも対応したユニバーサルアプリ - iPadのドラッグ&ドロップに対応(別アプリからキーワードをドロップすると検索されます) - iPadのSlide OverとSplit Viewに対応 - Retinaディスプレイに対応 - インターフェースのカラー変更(白/黒/セピア) - 文字のコントラスト調整 - 検索画面を引っぱって消去 - クリップボード検索 - 他のアプリからの検索 - カスタムアクション(他のアプリ上での検索) - 「大辞林」「角川類語新辞典」「日本国語大辞典」など、他の物書堂アプリとの相互連携機能 - VoiceOverによる解説文の読み上げ コンテンツについて ◎ スーパー大辞林3.0 現代の文字・活字文化を支える基本辞典として、また 21世紀初頭の日本語の姿を映し出す辞典として編纂された本格派日本語[国語+百科]辞典の最高峰「大辞林 第三版」に、新語の増補や社会情勢などの変化を反映させ編集。徹底した「現代語義優先方式」により意味・用法をより現代的なものから配列。類書に見られない懇切丁寧で詳しい解説や大型国語辞典に唯一のアクセント表示を搭載した充実の内容。 ・収録項目数:約26万5,000項目 ・収録図表数:約2,700項目

About

Nihongo

This app is an offline Japanese study tool that functions as a dictionary, translator, and flashcard creator. It helps users learn Japanese by analyzing text from their surroundings, such as signs and menus, and creating personalized study materials.

Highlights
  • Offline Japanese dictionary
  • Picture-to-text translation (OCR)
  • Automatic flashcard creation
  • Reading assistant with furigana/romaji
  • Spaced repetition flashcards
  • Search in English, Japanese, or romaji
Features
Read full description

Nihongo is an offline Japanese dictionary, picture-to-text translator, flashcard app, and reading assistant. Our app helps you learn Japanese naturally, using the words you encounter in daily life—on menus, signs, manga, emails, books, and more. In addition to the dictionary, you can take a picture of Japanese text or paste it from any source. Nihongo will then translate the text, add furigana or romaji, and create flashcards so you can study and steadily build your vocabulary. Here are the complete features of the app: DICTIONARY * Over 200,000 words, 205,000 example sentences, and 6000 kanji entries. * Every word clearly marked as common, uncommon, or rare. * Add your own notes to any dictionary entry. * Quickly identify transitive/intransitive word pairs. * Audio pronunciations of words and example sentences (Requires Nihongo Pro) PHOTO LOOKUP (OCR) [Pro] * Look up words just by taking a picture. * Uses Google Cloud Vision to provide high-quality text recognition. * Just tap on a word to look it up. CLIPPINGS (READING ASSISTANT) [Pro] * Adds furigana or romaji to text pasted into the app. * Tap on any word to see its definition without leaving the clipping. * Flashcard deck automatically created so you can study the new words in a clipping. * Display text horizontally or vertically. * Have Nihongo read any clipping out loud. FLASHCARDS [Pro] * Flashcards automatically generated from words you lookup in the dictionary or paste into the app. * Nihongo learns what words you know, and won't bother you again with words you've mastered. * Built-in kanji flashcard decks up through Middle School. * Intuitive spaced repetition flashcard system for vocabulary and kanji drawing. * Level up flashcards by studying every day. * No penalty for missing a day of study, come back anytime. SEARCH * Search using English, Japanese, or romaji. * Supports searching for conjugated words in both English and Japanese. * Search for kanji using radicals and stroke counts. SAFARI EXTENSION [Pro] * Add furigana or romaji to webpages. * Tap on words to see definition within Safari. Nihongo Pro Terms of Use Read our full Terms of Service at https://nihongo-app.com/terms_of_use.html. This app is only possible because of the JMDict (edrdg.org) and Tatoeba (tatoeba.org) projects. I highly encourage you to support these incredible projects that make apps like Nihongo possible!

Screenshots

大辞林4 screens
Nihongo4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Nihongo at Free against 大辞林's $18.99. Nihongo also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (1.9K vs 18). 大辞林's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 6). On rating, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Nihongo is free to download; 大辞林 costs $18.99 up front. Nihongo sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. 大辞林 asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for 大辞林 against 4.8 for Nihongo. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Nihongo has 1.9K ratings behind it against 18, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 71% of 大辞林's written reviews are positive against 91% of Nihongo's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

大辞林 ships an update every 2 months, Nihongo weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
大辞林 versus Nihongo: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameter大辞林Nihongo
Price$18.99Free — better
Rating4.8 (18 ratings)4.8 (1.9K ratings)
Positive reviews71.3% of reviews91.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings181.9K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Freemium
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size243 MB493 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer物書堂Serpenti Sei Japan

Customer experience

大辞林

All ratings18 ratings
Positive94.4%
Neutral0.0%
Negative5.6%
Written reviews87 reviews
Positive71.3%
Neutral10.3%
Negative18.4%

Nihongo

All ratings1,869 ratings
Positive95.6%
Neutral2.5%
Negative2.0%
Written reviews265 reviews
Positive91.3%
Neutral4.5%
Negative4.2%

Bugs and requests

大辞林

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Nihongo

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Freezing issues when tapping on kanji
  • Font size problems
  • Inconsistent OCR and translation accuracy

Requested features

5 requests
  • Handwriting input support
  • Customizable flashcard settings
  • Monolingual dictionary feature
  • Improved backup and sync functionality
  • Statistics and progress tracking

In-app purchases

None

大辞林

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

Nihongo

Subscriptions3
  • Nihongo Pro (Monthly)7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Nihongo Pro (3 Months)7 Days trial$11.993 Months
  • Nihongo Pro (Annual)7 Days trial$49.991 Year
One-time2
  • Pitch Accents$9.99
  • Nihongo Pro (Lifetime)2 variants$179.99

Questions

Is 大辞林 free?
大辞林 costs $18.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Nihongo free?
Nihongo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, 大辞林 or Nihongo?
大辞林 and Nihongo are both rated 4.8 out of 5 on the App Store, from 18 and 1.9K ratings respectively.
Do 大辞林 or Nihongo have ads?
Neither 大辞林 nor Nihongo shows ads.
Which is updated more often, 大辞林 or Nihongo?
大辞林 ships an update every 2 months, and Nihongo weekly. Most recently, 大辞林 was updated on October 19, 2026 and Nihongo on October 21, 2026.

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