Japanese dictionary · iOS 26

Everything you need to read Japanese, available offline.

Look up any Japanese word or kanji for meanings, readings, natural example sentences, animated stroke order, and native-speaker audio.

Join the waitlist

One email, on the day it reaches the App Store.

Kotoba's Today screen: a kanji of the day card for 植, “plant”, above a list of decks — JLPT N5 Vocabulary, Verbs & Adjectives and N4 Kanji — each with its card count and how much of it is mastered.Kotoba's Today screen: a kanji of the day card for 植, “plant”, above a list of decks — JLPT N5 Vocabulary, Verbs & Adjectives and N4 Kanji — each with its card count and how much of it is mastered.
dictionary entries
217,648
kanji
13,108
example sentences
232,637
network requests
0

Study

Remember more of what you look up.

Save any word or kanji to a deck directly from its entry, or start with one included in the app. Kotoba’s SRS brings back the cards you’re least sure about, at the right time.

A deck screen for N4 Kanji, 24 cards at 25% mastered, offering four ways to study it — Flip, Write, Quiz and Browse — above a count of new, learning, review and mastered cards.A deck screen for N4 Kanji, 24 cards at 25% mastered, offering four ways to study it — Flip, Write, Quiz and Browse — above a count of new, learning, review and mastered cards.

Study modes

One deck. Four ways to practise.

  • Kotoba's Study dashboard: a collection of 168 cards at 31% mastered, split into new, learning, review and mastered, above a week of review activity.Kotoba's Study dashboard: a collection of 168 cards at 31% mastered, split into new, learning, review and mastered, above a week of review activity.

Flip

Recall the meaning, reveal it, then say how it went.

Write

Draw the kanji stroke by stroke. Each stroke is checked.

Dashboard

What is new, learning, due and mastered — across every deck.

Quiz

Pick the meaning from four. Wrong answers come back sooner.

Browse

Swipe the whole deck, readings and example sentences included.

Lookup

Search the way it comes to you.

Type or paste a word in English, kana, kanji, or rōmaji. Kotoba understands what you mean, including conjugated verbs.

Kotoba's search screen showing results for the query “water”, each row listing a kanji with its meaning and stroke count, and a JLPT level where the corpus records one.Kotoba's search screen showing results for the query “water”, each row listing a kanji with its meaning and stroke count, and a JLPT level where the corpus records one.

Word detail

More than a translation.

See furigana above each word, meanings grouped by part of speech, and a breakdown of every kanji. Tap Listen to hear how it sounds.

A word detail screen for 後継, “succession”, showing its reading こうけい, a Listen button, its two numbered noun senses, and the kanji 後 and 継 with their own meanings.A word detail screen for 後継, “succession”, showing its reading こうけい, a Listen button, its two numbered noun senses, and the kanji 後 and 継 with their own meanings.
A kanji detail screen for 後, its stroke order drawn over a faint outline, above a Listen button, its 9 strokes, grade 2, JLPT N5 and #26 frequency, the meanings “behind, back, later”, and the on’yomi ゴ、コウ.A kanji detail screen for 後, its stroke order drawn over a faint outline, above a Listen button, its 9 strokes, grade 2, JLPT N5 and #26 frequency, the meanings “behind, back, later”, and the on’yomi ゴ、コウ.

Scan

See a word you don’t know? Point your camera at it.

Kotoba recognises words and kanji right on your device, so nothing is uploaded. Tap any highlighted word to open its entry. No need to type characters you can’t read yet.

Kotoba's camera scan over a Japanese textbook page, with recognised words outlined and a panel showing the kanji 活 and the word 活動 with their meanings.

Also in the app

The small things you'll use every day.

Words in real sentences

232,637 sentences from Tatoeba, with furigana over the kanji. Tap any word in the line to open its own entry.

冷(つめ)たい水(みず)を持(も)ってきて下(くだ)さい。

Bring me some cold water.

Hear it, not just read it

Every word and example sentence reads aloud in a Japanese system voice. Pick and preview yours in Settings — it speaks with no connection.

Furigana, on your terms

Readings sit above the kanji while you need them. One tap hides them for the screen you're on, so you can check yourself before you look.

Your decks on every device

Bookmarks, decks and review history move between iPhone and iPad through your own private iCloud. There's no Kotoba account to create.

Something to learn on open

Today puts a kanji in front of you the moment the app opens, and your decks one tap below it — how many cards each holds, and how much of it has stuck so far.

Offline

The whole dictionary ships with the app.

All 217,648 entries are stored on the device, and Kotoba makes no network request while you use it. On a train, on a plane, in a classroom with no signal, it behaves the same. No account, no sign-in, no analytics.

Waitlist

Be first to know when Kotoba ships.

Leave your email and it gets used once: a single message on the day Kotoba reaches the App Store. No newsletter, no other mail.

Thank you for being one of the first people awaiting KOTOBA. We will notify you when it's available on the App Store.

Sources

Built on open dictionaries

JMdict and KANJIDIC2 from the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, example sentences from Tatoeba, stroke-order diagrams from KanjiVG, and JLPT level data derived from Jonathan Waller's resources.

Full credits and licences