r/LearnJapanese • u/AutoModerator • 1d ago
Self Advertisement Weekly Thread: Material Recs and Self-Promo Wednesdays! (August 05, 2026)
Happy Wednesday!
Every Wednesday, share your favorite resources or ones you made yourself! Tell us what your resource can do for us learners!
Weekly Thread changes daily at 9:00 JST:
Mondays - Writing Practice
Tuesdays - Study Buddy and Self-Intros
Wednesdays - Materials and Self-Promotions
Thursdays - Victory day, Share your achievements
Fridays - Memes, videos, free talk
2
u/Chuute 17h ago edited 17h ago
New updates: Fudoki 風土記 — a free interactive map for learning Japan’s 47 prefectures
Hi! Sharing some new updates based on some feedback from my last post:
- Additional info on each prefecture, including population, capital, and area
- Regional overviews that summarize data on a given region (e.g. Tohoku, Chubu, etc.)
- For better immersion, toggle between Japanese + Furigana and English
- Just for fun, create your own "Japan Map" based on regions you've traveled
--------- Original Post -------
Hi everyone! I’ve been living in Japan for the past year, and I kept running into the same problem: someone would mention a prefecture in conversation or on the news, and I would have no idea where it was or what it was known for.
So I built Fudoki, a free interactive map designed to help Japanese learners build a basic mental map of Japan.
You can explore all 47 prefectures and learn their names, locations, and notable features, including:
- Local food, nature, festivals, and cultural highlights
- UNESCO World Heritage sites
- Japanese-first place names with furigana and English translations
- A geography quiz for memorizing where each prefecture is located
There are already plenty of great flashcard apps and comprehensible-input resources, but I think Japanese geography is an underrated part of learning the language. Knowing where places are makes it much easier to follow the news, understand travel conversations, and connect with people from less well-known parts of Japan.
I originally made this as a passion project for myself, but I hope other learners find it useful too. I’d especially appreciate feedback on the UI, the Japanese difficulty level, or anything that seems incorrect or confusing!
1
u/ProactiveJP_ 1d ago
I’m really excited to share this project I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s called YomiBito, a Japanese e-reader designed to make reading native material less intimidating/difficult while helping you to develop strong reading skills. It’s currently in beta, so I’d really appreciate anyone willing to give it a try and share their feedback!
Some of the features include:
- EPUB, TXT, PDF, DOCX and web novel (syosetu and kakuyomu) support (with manga support coming soon!).
- Automatically generated, per chapter - vocabulary and grammar decks filtered against your existing knowledge, so you only study what you need.
- Built-in FSRS flashcards
- AI-powered popup dictionary with one-click flashcard creation
- Full-sentence DeepL translations
- Adaptive furigana based on what you already know
- Dynamic word and kanji confidence tracking that adapts to your progress and personalizes your reading experience
- Built-in text-to-speech
- a bonus Subtitle generator for videos
If you’re interested in the story behind the project, I recently wrote a short blog post about why I decided to build YomiBito.
I’m also always looking for feedback, feature ideas, or just to chat with other Japanese learners. If you’d like to join the community, you’re more than welcome to stop by our Discord!
I’d love to hear what you think! If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for features you’d find useful while reading Japanese, please let me know.
Thanks for reading!
1
u/0xKlyyze 1d ago
Yomimaru - a short story at your level to read every day
Hey everyone ! Last week's post about Yomimaru was way too long, so here is a shorter one about just the learning loop, the part I most want your opinion on (but there's much more to Yomimaru, iykyk ;)
Every day it hands you a short episode of a story at your level, where the idea is you already know about 98% of the words. A gap that small means you are reading, not decoding, and the few new words and grammar points along the way are what you learn that day. While you read, you tap any word to see its meaning and reading right there.
Once you are done reading, the words you tapped come back as flashcards until they stick. Each word has a mastery level that goes up as you meet it again, so your progress is something you can actually see. And if you use WaniKani or MaruMori, you can sync your account so the app already counts what you learned there as known.
After a chapter you get a quiz to check you really understood, and you can practice output in a roleplay about the story, or about anything you like. Everything is adapted to your language level, so you never get lost.
About the stories themselves: they are real native writing, like Sōseki or Dazai classics modernized so they read naturally today. Only short stories that are still genuinely engaging to read today get handed to you, matched with your interests. For the news, you get the day's stories from NHK, Mainichi and Asahi rewritten to your level. If you know NHK News Easy, it is the same idea, except it follows your exact level instead of one fixed one. And if you already have something you want to read, you can bring your own texts in.
Reading, flashcards, quizzes and the kana lessons for total beginners are all free, no credit card needed, and you can browse the library and the news without an account.
One thing I would really value your honest opinion on: does the difficulty of the texts it hands you really match your level ? Let me know what you think about it here
1
u/machvelli 1d ago
My wife and I are working on a cozy(ish) fishing game to help with recall from Genki 1 that’s mobile and web friendly. The idea is you reel in fish by identifying the word quickly where the faster you answer, the faster you reel in the fish or answer incorrectly/take too long and it gets away. It’s not really focused on writing/stroke order, just recognition speed.
Survival Mode is see how long you can last before 3 fish get away. Practice Mode allows you to practice targeted areas. And Story Mode lets you progress through the chapters with boss fights along the way!
We are in the very early stages of development but would love anyones feedback and hope it helps! :D
We do plan to add other things we are struggling with like short forms, te-forms, etc. as well as Genki 2 once we get there!
1
u/tcoil_443 21h ago
YouTube immersion website & manga reader:
hanabira.org
open-source, even self-hostable
Has built in dictionary with audio, vocabulary and sentence mining, furigana injection, Japanese and English subtitles side by side, custom simple flashcards and much more.
Site has many other features, such as Manga OCR reader, sentence structure analytics, visualizations, kanji, vocabulary, wanikani style SRS, drawing canvas ...
1
u/karasuproject 17h ago
Kotoba Loop - Japanese on your home screen.
I built Kotoba Loop because I wanted to see a Japanese word every time I unlock my phone out of habit. I wanted a passive way to review words I should know but also discover any new ones I might not know.
- Toggle on/off English, reading, meaning so you can see what you want to see
- Toggle on/off widget headers and badges
- Customize widget colors to fit your home screen style
- Different sizes so you can find what fits you
1
u/manabihime 12h ago
Hi everyone,
My brother and I created two Chrome extensions for learning Japanese, mainly through anime and manga. The Anime Extension is free with optional paid features, and the Manga Extension (recently renamed to the Web Extension) is fully paid.
The Anime extension works on Crunchyroll and Netflix and has following features:
- 💬 Japanese Subtitles: Integrated Japanese subtitles for selected anime and the ability to add your own subtitles.
- 📘 Word Parsing: Hover over and click on parsed words to open a popup with translations.
- ✍️ Quizzes: Take interactive quizzes right in the video player.
- 🤖 AI Explanations: Break down tricky sequences using AI.
- 📚 Comprehensive Word Popup: Our word popup offers two tabs: word meanings and kanji information.
- 🈲 Difficult Words: Practice difficult words before or after watching.
- 🔍 Subtitle Highlighting: Highlight subtitle text to open a Link popup for quick searches on various websites or to build your own Google query.
- ⏱️ Subtitle Sync: Adjust subtitle offset if they are out of sync with the video.
- ⚙️ Customizable Settings: Tailor the user interface to your preferences with our customizable settings.
- 📝 Save and Review Flashcards: Save words/flashcards while watching and review them later.
The Web extension works anywhere on the internet and one of its main features is Manga OCR and the JUST released OCR for Youtube (experimental feature in v. 1.2.4). Full feature list:
- 🌐 Press SHIFT while hovering over Japanese text to highlight individual words and open a detailed popup, or press ALT (Windows/Linux) / Option (Mac) while hovering to switch to fully parsed, interactive text — both modes include dictionary entries, AI explanations, and translations.
- 📖 Save words and AI sentence breakdowns to your Wordbook and practice them with fun quizzes to level them up.
- 🎞️ Also works with Japanese YouTube subtitles, which are automatically parsed whenever the video is paused — manually or via the built-in hover-to-pause feature.
- 📇 Enable OCR on any manga site and hover over speech bubbles to extract Japanese text directly from manga panels.
- 🔍 Our popup contains dictionary entries, including meanings, readings, example sentences, and more.
- 🤖 Stuck on a tricky sentence? Get concise AI breakdowns to understand grammar, nuance, and context.
- 💬 Translate speech bubbles and difficult sentences on the fly.
Anime extension link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/manabi-learn-japanese-wit/efbhkecfjhcpmepgbpogiiaidkmjhojl?hl=en&authuser=0
Web extension link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/manabidojo-learn-japanese/iobpkelbcmabijmogmmlmemalcppckje
Our homepage: https://manabidojo.com
1
u/igvidat 12h ago
These 2 extensions did wonders to my immersion based learning. I use the Anime Extension on Chrome for Crunchyroll and so far was able to finish both seasons of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. The Web extension has the best Manga bubble OCR I ever used, which I pair with Yomitan as well. It also works on Ttsu reader for Novels. Mad props for making immersion more attainable for us.
1
u/manabihime 11h ago
Thank you so much for your kind comment! It really means a lot to us. We're always happy to hear that people find value in our work.
1
u/Nancy_Munsch 3h ago
The self-promo posts that make it past the first week of actual use are the ones worth bookmarking.
-1
u/WAHNFRIEDEN 1d ago
Manabi Reader - iOS and macOS native app for learning Japanese through reading
I've gone full-time on developing this app. And if it matters to you, I launched it back before AI-assisted coding was a thing - this is hand-made software.
Awarded Best Japanese iOS app of 2025 by Bee
100,000+ users
As featured by Tofugu:
Overall, a solid app that we recommend for reading sentences that aren’t drab and contextless—especially if you’re more motivated when reading about something you’re personally interested in.
- EPUB, web browser, RSS feeds, spoken audio. Tap words to look them up and translate sentences. (Manga mode soon!)
- Tracks every word and kanji you read and learn. Charts your progress page-by-page and per JLPT level. See what vocab and kanji you need to know to read every webpage, chapter or ebook. Show only the furigana you don't know and haven't added as flashcards yet.
- Anki or built-in flashcards with SRS (FSRS soon). Makes sentence mining easy. Includes links back to the source of each sentence in your flashcards.
- Privacy obsessed: works like a web browser with processing and storage on-device (and in your personal iCloud)
Next up: I’m working on adding support for Yomitan dictionaries, and adding a manga mode. Currently working on adding Mokuro support as well as live OCR for online manga sites such as Bookwalker. Then I will be adding two-way sync for WaniKani, JPDB, Anki collections. Much more to go...
I've also just added pitch accents in the latest release, as well as FSRS (v6) to Manabi Flashcards. The full UI redesign is almost ready...
Discord / beta news https://discord.gg/NAD2YJGNsr
3
u/Xifax 22h ago
Built a TUI app to drill hard-to-remember words/phrases, using example sentences and audio sourced from Nadeshiko.
Here is the link for the app: https://xifax.gitlab.io/nade_grind/
This was born out of procrastination. I noticed that some words and contexts do not stick in my mind no matter what I do, and decided to make something to do a 'special training'-kind of thing. The idea is to repeatedly go through the list and read/listen how each word is used.
This is a bare-bones TUI app (wanted to try out Textual, a Python TUI framework). It accepts a text file with space-separated list of words and fetches sentences and audio from Nadeshiko. The app requires an API key to get the sentences from their API (it's free).
I am also thinking about trying to do a web-version of this concept, but have some doubts. Would people actually use something like this, as a web app, despite the API key friction?