Sottaku vs Looplingo
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sottaku
Master Chinese, Japanese, and Korean vocabulary with this app. It offers fast lookups, audio pronunciation, spaced repetition, and interactive quizzes. A browser extension and community chat are also available for enhanced learning.
- Fast word and sentence lookups
- Audio pronunciation and furigana
- Spaced repetition flashcards
- Quick quizzes and challenge modes
- Community chat feature
- Companion browser extension
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Sottaku is a language learning app where you can study up to 15 languages: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian, Latin, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi. Study with fast lookups, grammar explanations, audio, flashcards, quizzes and spaced repetition, then bring the language into real conversations by discovering language exchange partners and talking in Sottaku Chat. • Discover learners and native speakers for language exchange • Chat with partners and the Sottaku community • Search words and example sentences • Explore grammar guides and sentence breakdowns where available • Furigana (reading hints) and audio for reading & listening where available • Save words as flashcards and review with smart scheduling • Quick quizzes and challenge modes to stay consistent • Use our companion browser extension, Sottaku-Yomitan, to look up words while reading online (Chrome/Firefox/Edge) • Sync your progress across devices when you sign in Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Looplingo
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Discover and learn Japanese with complete, real sentences. 180 themes of 10 sentences each, from the classics to the unexpected — 1,800 sentences in total. Free to download, no account, no ads. ONE SENTENCE AT A TIME Most learning methods drown you in vocabulary lists. Looplingo works differently: one sentence, one context, one score. Every review is rated, and the system prioritizes whatever keeps slipping away. The more you practice, the less time you waste. EVERYDAY THEMES Restaurant, transport, hotel, family… Pick a theme, review its sentences, and track your progress card by card. A fully mastered theme gets validated — but stays replayable anytime. THREE REVIEW MODES • Cards: flip the card and rate yourself honestly. • Multiple choice quiz: pick the right translation out of four options, with visual and haptic feedback. • Priority: a smart session that gathers your difficult sentences and your favorites. SIMPLE, HONEST PROGRESS No black-box algorithm: every correct answer brings a sentence closer to being acquired, every mistake pushes it back. And each direction is tracked separately — understanding a sentence and producing it are two different skills. When a sentence reaches your mastery threshold (adjustable from 1 to 100), it's acquired. Slow memorizer? Raise the threshold. Want to move fast? Lower it. YOUR FAVORITES FIRST Tap the heart on sentences that keep tripping you up. Priority mode puts them at the front of the session, together with the sentences the app automatically detects as fragile. BUILT FOR JAPANESE Display in hiragana or kanji, optional romaji under the cards, and text-to-speech to hear every sentence with the right pronunciation. CONSISTENCY OVER INTENSITY Daily progress rings, streak, daily goal, and an optional daily reminder: five minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday. FREE TO ACTUALLY TRY The free version is not a demo: 4 full themes, all language pairs, and every review mode, with no time limit. LOOPLINGO PRO, ONE-TIME PURCHASE FOR LIFE Unlock 100% of the themes (all 180, 1,800 sentences), add your own custom sentence packs (JSON, loaded from a simple URL), and export or restore your database anytime. One single purchase, no subscription. Your data stays on your device, and deleting a pack never deletes your learning history. 5 LANGUAGES, EVERY COMBINATION French, Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean are all built in — and every pair works both ways: French → Japanese, Japanese → French, Chinese → Korean, English → Chinese… Learn in whichever direction you want, from whichever language you already speak. More languages are on the way — feel free to tell us which ones you'd like to see first. Open a theme. Flip a card. Come back every day. That's the whole secret.
Screenshots
Verdict
Sottaku and Looplingo are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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. Sottaku sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $14.99 per month and Looplingo sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | Sottaku | Looplingo |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (12 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 80.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 12 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 161 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sottaku Inc | Julien Dutto |
In-app purchases
Sottaku
- Sottaku Pro$14.991 Month
- Sottaku Pro: Gift Sub$14.991 Month
- Sottaku: 750 Gold$9.99
- Sottaku Pro: One Month Gift Sub$14.99
- Sottaku: 1600 Gold$19.99
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- Sottaku: 3400 Gold$39.99
- Sottaku: 9200 Gold$99.99
- Sottaku: 20000 Gold$199.99
Looplingo
- Unlock Pro Version$3.99









