Comparison

Yamato Match vs NihonGO Dominos

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

Head to head
About

Yamato Match

Features
Read full description

Learn Japanese for the moments that matter in Japan. Yamato Match combines bite-sized language games with clear introductions to Japanese culture. EXPLORE JAPAN Read short bilingual stories about bushido, seasonal traditions, and everyday customs. Switch between English and Japanese at any time, then check what you learned with a quick quiz. PRACTICE REAL-LIFE JAPANESE Match Japanese words with natural English meanings, learn seasonal vocabulary, and build useful phrases for travel and convenience-store conversations. KEEP YOUR MOMENTUM Follow a learning path, complete daily quests, and track your streak, hearts, and XP. MAKE IT YOURS Choose Japanese-inspired themes and alternate app icons. Optional Pro unlocks deeper activities, more practice options, and personal word cards. No account required. Start learning right away.

About

NihonGO Dominos

This app aids intermediate Japanese learners by providing rapid, repeated exposure to vocabulary, grammar, and kanji through a unique tile-flipping mechanic. It focuses on recognition and spaced repetition for challenging items, offering an integrated learning environment without accounts or ads.

Highlights
  • Vocabulary tiles with example sentences
  • Grammar patterns with JLPT levels
  • Kanji with stroke order animations
  • Integrated reading environment
  • Spaced repetition for challenging items
  • Offline functionality
Read full description

NihonGO Dominos is built for the intermediate phase of Japanese — the long climb from finishing a beginner course to reading everyday text on your own. A stretch where progress feels slow, and what helps most is rapid, repeated exposure to the building blocks of the language. —— ONE MECHANIC —— The whole loop is a domino tile. Tap to peek the back. Hold or double-tap to retire it. One thumb, on the train, every day. Tiles glow bone → amber → orange → vermilion as you cycle through them, and items you actually struggle with land in a Challenge Box for spaced repetition — only where it pays off. —— THREE PILLARS —— 語彙 Goi (Vocabulary) — 6,363 tiles across eight frequency tiers. Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, conjunctions, number paradigms. Every entry validated against JMdict. ~98% coverage of everyday text at the top of the pool. 6,926 example sentences, individually composed — every sentence built from words already in the corpus, and every one of them read aloud in a natural Japanese voice. A further 1,373 vocabulary entries ship as lookup cards, each with its own spoken example, so a tapped word in any sentence lands on a real card instead of nothing. 文法 Bunpou (Grammar) — 611 grammar patterns spanning JLPT N5 through N1, hand-curated under sensei supervision. One specific surface form per tile. Cross-checked against established grammar references. ~94–96% coverage in general texts. 漢字 Kanji (Characters) — 2,228 kanji from the JLPT pool unioned with the Kyōiku elementary set, ranked by a blended newspaper-and-encyclopedia frequency score. Each card has the glyph with colored radicals, kun and on readings, English gloss, a hand-written mnemonic, KanjiVG stroke-order animation, and compound examples that link back into Goi. ~95% coverage of everyday reading. —— TWO REFERENCE SETS —— 部首 Bushu (Radicals) — All 214 Kangxi radicals. Tap any radical to see the kanji that contain it. 仮名 Kana — 232 hiragana, katakana, and extended foreign-sound katakana, organized by row, vowel, and modifier. —— TILES THAT LINK —— Over 46,000 tap-to-jump links run through the corpus. In example sentences, follow any tappable word straight to its own card. In Kanji cards, the compound examples link back into Goi. The app is an integrated reading environment, not a stack of separate flashcards. —— WHAT WE DON'T DO —— No invented "Lesson 1, Lesson 2" curriculum — order is frequency. Tier 1 is what you'll meet first in real Japanese; Tier 8 is what you'll meet last. (If you'd rather browse by JLPT level, there's a toggle in Settings — same pool, re-bucketed: kanji from N5 all the way to N1 plus a beyond-JLPT set, grammar N5 to N2 with the N1 patterns in the frequency tiers.) No drowning in SRS queues. The main loop is rapid, repeated exposure by flipping tiles. The Challenge Box is a Leitner-style safety net for items you've genuinely struggled with — not the front door. No production drills. Recognition is the skill; production follows from input. No accounts. No tracking. No analytics. No ads. No data collected. No internet required after install. —— iCLOUD SYNC —— Your Challenge Box and study progress sync between your iPhone and iPad through your own iCloud account, so you can switch devices and pick up where you left off. The sync runs through Apple. We never see your data. —— FOR WHOM —— Built for serious intermediate learners. You can read hiragana and katakana, you've worked through a beginner course, and you want to push from "I can read simple sentences" to "I can read newspapers, novels, blogs, manga." If you're a true beginner, finish a beginner course first and come back. If you're already comfortable with monolingual Japanese dictionaries, you're past us. Everyone else — this is the tool we built because we couldn't find it.

Screenshots

Yamato Match3 screens
NihonGO Dominos4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: NihonGO Dominos at none against Yamato Match's 1. NihonGO Dominos also leads on ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (17.6 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence and device support 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. Yamato Match sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. NihonGO Dominos asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Yamato Match ships an update fortnightly, NihonGO Dominos every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Yamato Match versus NihonGO Dominos: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterYamato MatchNihonGO Dominos
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.017.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size9 MB751 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMuramatsu MasanoriJUERGEN WOLFGANG HAMMER

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Yamato Match

One-time1
  • Yamato Match Pro$9.99
None

NihonGO Dominos

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Yamato Match free?
Yamato Match is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is NihonGO Dominos free?
NihonGO Dominos is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Yamato Match or NihonGO Dominos have ads?
Yamato Match shows ads; NihonGO Dominos does not.
Which is updated more often, Yamato Match or NihonGO Dominos?
Yamato Match ships an update fortnightly, and NihonGO Dominos every 3 weeks. Most recently, Yamato Match was updated on October 28, 2026 and NihonGO Dominos on October 10, 2026.

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