Comparison

Duolingo vs Japanese Dictionary + ©

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

Head to head
About

Duolingo

Learn languages, math, music, and chess through fun, bite-sized lessons. Build vocabulary, grammar, and real-world skills with a science-based methodology. Track progress and stay motivated with a global community.

Highlights
  • Bite-sized language lessons
  • Speaking, reading, listening, writing practice
  • Math skills development
  • Music reading and playing
  • Chess strategy and gameplay
  • Progress tracking and rewards
Features
Read full description

Learn a new language, chess & more with the world's most downloaded education app! Duolingo is the fun, free app for learning 40+ languages through quick, bite-sized lessons. Practice speaking, reading, listening & writing to build your vocabulary & grammar skills. Designed by learning experts & loved by hundreds of millions worldwide, our lessons make learning effective & fun and help you prepare for real conversations in Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, German, English and more. And now, you can learn CHESS on Duolingo! Whether you're a total beginner or looking to level up your game, you'll love learning chess the Duolingo way. Play matches and fun chess lessons for all levels, no matter the language - chess, ajedrez, xadrez, schach, Шахматы, الشطرنج. • Chess: Learn the moves, level up your game & play matches in our Chess course. Learn the basics, solve fun chess puzzles & improve your strategy with guided lessons. Whether you're new to chess or already play, our course is designed to help you have fun and build real skills. Checkmate! • Math: Forget lectures and math worksheets! Built by learning experts, our Math course makes math feel like a game. Boost learning and fight the summer slide with standards-aligned math lessons for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. • Music: Learn how to read music & play songs in our Music course, no instrument needed! Using an on-screen keyboard, you'll learn bit-by-bit. Whether you're learning a language for travel, school, career or your brain health, you'll love learning with Duolingo. Why Duolingo? • Duolingo is fun & effective. Game-like language lessons & fun characters help you build speaking, reading, listening, & writing skills, plus enjoy fun chess & competitive online chess in one app. • Duolingo works. Designed by learning experts, Duolingo has a science-based teaching methodology proven to foster long-term knowledge retention across language lessons & chess lessons alike. • Track your progress. Work toward your learning goals with playful rewards & achievements when you make practicing language lessons or chess online part of your daily habit. • Join millions of learners. Stay motivated with competitive Leaderboards as you learn languages & play chess online alongside our global community. • Every course is free. Learn Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, Arabic, Latin, Hawaiian, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, English, & even High Valyrian! And now, learn Math, Music & improve your Chess skills with fun, bite-sized lessons. What the world is saying about Duolingo: "Far & away the best language-learning app." - The Wall Street Journal "This free app & website is among the most effective language-learning methods I've tried… lessons come in the form of brief challenges, speaking, translating, answering multiple-choice questions, that keep me coming back for more." - The New York Times "Duolingo may hold the secret to the future of education." - TIME Magazine "Duolingo is cheerful, lighthearted & fun." - Forbes "I Can't Stop Playing Duolingo Chess." - Wired If you like Duolingo, try Super Duolingo for 14 days free! Learn a language fast with no ads & get fun perks like Unlimited Energy & Monthly Streak Repair. If you choose to purchase Super Duolingo, payment will be charged to your Apple account, and your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the App Store after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. Privacy Policy: https://www.duolingo.com/privacy Terms of Service: https://www.duolingo.com/terms

About

Japanese Dictionary + ©

This comprehensive Japanese-English dictionary app offers offline access to millions of entries, a powerful verb conjugator, and a phrasebook. It includes vocabulary quizzes, flashcards, and pronunciation guides, making it an ideal language learning companion.

Highlights
  • Offline Japanese-English dictionary with millions of entries
  • Comprehensive verb conjugator
  • Phrasebook with categorized phrases
  • Vocabulary quizzes and flashcards
  • Offline pronunciation in Japanese & English
  • Apple Watch support with voice lookups
Features
Read full description

The #1 Japanese English Dictionary for iPhone, iPad & Apple Watch ◇ Offline Dictionary Compiled by Professional Linguists ◇ Verb Conjugator ◇ Phrasebook ◇ Vocabulary Quizzes ◇ Flashcards ◇ Loved by Millions "Apps from Vidalingua are hugely popular... they're free and they work offline, handy when you're actually abroad." New York Times Selected by Apple as "What's Hot" in over 40 countries. “This app packs an undeniable allure for travelers.” - iPhone App Review USER REVIEWS “This online dictionary is so comprehensive that it often contains words or idioms that I cannot find in my paperback dictionary. I am a retired language professor.” “This app includes more reliable features than any of the others I’ve tried. The customer service people are great, very helpful.” “My students are ditching their books for iPads so I looked at apps and websites with quality material. This is the app I recommend.” “This app helped me through my class for school. It’s great and has pronunciation, spelling, example sentences with words, etc. 10/10.” “Great for Travel. Very helpful to find words and phrases without an internet connection.” Japanese Dictionary + by VidaLingua transforms your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch into an advanced language assistant, always ready to help. It includes features you won’t find in any other app and it’s trusted by millions of users who have given it the highest rating average of any app in its category. FEATURES • Japanese English Dictionary with over 2,740,0000 offline entries. Includes numerous translations, usage examples, part-of-speech, and images. Compiled and updated by professional linguists. • Best verb conjugator of any app including 10,626 Japanese verbs, 4,318 English verbs. Over 1,094,000 verb forms in all! • Phrasebook with 20 categories such as Conversation, Asking Directions and Making Friends. • Multiple-choice vocabulary quizzes. • Flashcards. Create study lists based on dictionary favorites. • Offline pronunciation in Japanese & English. Settings for speed and accent (Japanese, US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Ireland). • iPad Split Screen support so you can drag & drop words from other apps into Japanese Translator & Dictionary + to translate them. • Apple Watch support with voice lookups so you can say a word and find translations quickly. • Advanced voice recognition to enter words and phrases hands-free. Useful for practicing pronunciation. • Helpful dictionary features such as single index search, reverse lookup and sharing entries with friends. • Integrated access to Wikipedia, Wiktionary and other online sources for dictionary words. • Dictionary word attachments for notes, images and audio clips. • My Phrases section of phrasebook to add your own translations. • Vidalingua Pro includes more dictionary examples, more verb forms, a bigger phrasebook and no ads. By upgrading, you’ll be supporting our team of linguists, developers and customer success partners who greatly appreciate your support! USER REVIEWS “This is a really excellent dictionary. Easy to use, great conjugation tables and some great added features like voice input and word pronunciation.” “This has been an extremely useful app as I prepare for a language exam and review verb conjugations.” “I love this app so much! It is a complete package for finding almost anything starting from words to phrases.” At Vidalingua, we consider every user a partner to help us make the best app in the world for learning Japanese. Download Japanese Dictionary + for free and start learning today! Marc Bolh Founder Vidalingua

Screenshots

Duolingo4 screens
Japanese Dictionary + ©4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Japanese Dictionary + © at 100% against Duolingo's 65%. Japanese Dictionary + © also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). Duolingo's advantage is update cadence (every 5 days vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (5.5M vs 2). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

Both are free to download. Duolingo sells 16 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Japanese Dictionary + © sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Japanese Dictionary + © holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Duolingo has 5.5M ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 65% of Duolingo's written reviews are positive against 100% of Japanese Dictionary + ©'s.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Duolingo ships an update every 5 days, Japanese Dictionary + © every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Duolingo versus Japanese Dictionary + ©: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDuolingoJapanese Dictionary + ©
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (5.5M ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews64.7% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings5.5M — better2
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterEvery 2 months
AdsYesYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#1 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size490 MB77 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDuolingo, IncAscendo Inc.

Customer experience

Duolingo

All ratings5,540,071 ratings
Positive94.2%
Neutral2.5%
Negative3.4%
Written reviews30,718 reviews
Positive64.7%
Neutral9.6%
Negative25.6%

Japanese Dictionary + ©

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Duolingo

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Freezing or crashing during lessons
  • Incorrect translations or answers marked wrong
  • Inconsistent behavior of certain features like leagues

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more languages, especially less common ones
  • Improve grammar lessons and explanations
  • Allow more flexibility in navigating the course content
  • Provide better feedback and corrections for mistakes
  • Sync progress and features consistently across app and web

Japanese Dictionary + ©

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

16 purchases

Duolingo

Subscriptions10
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$12.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial$12.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Super Duolingo2 variants$59.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial2 variants$79.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial4 variants$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial4 variants$95.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo1 Month trial$119.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$119.991 Year
One-time6
  • Chest of Gems$0.99
  • Barrel of Gems (1200)$4.99
  • Chest of Gems (1200)$4.99
Show 3 more
  • Cart of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Barrel of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Cart of Gems (6500)$19.99
1 purchases

Japanese Dictionary + ©

One-time1
  • Premium Features$9.99

Questions

Is Duolingo free?
Duolingo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Japanese Dictionary + © free?
Japanese Dictionary + © is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Duolingo or Japanese Dictionary + ©?
Japanese Dictionary + © is rated higher. Duolingo averages 4.7 out of 5 from 5.5M ratings, while Japanese Dictionary + © averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Duolingo or Japanese Dictionary + © have ads?
Both Duolingo and Japanese Dictionary + © show ads.
Which is updated more often, Duolingo or Japanese Dictionary + ©?
Duolingo ships an update every 5 days, and Japanese Dictionary + © every 2 months. Most recently, Duolingo was updated on October 31, 2026 and Japanese Dictionary + © on October 22, 2026.

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