Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your skills, this guide showcases essential resources that can accelerate your learning. From comprehensive a comprehensive Japanese dictionary to innovative learning apps, find out which tools I personally recommend and why they stand out in the vast sea of language learning aids. Don’t miss out on these game-changing resources — watch now and transform your Japanese study routine!

Here are my top nine most loved Japanese learning tools.

1 & 2 Japanese Dictionary

So, first up, we have Jisho.org and Takoboto.jp. These are both very trustworthy dictionary apps.

You can use them to look up words in Japanese and find their equivalents in English.

I’ve been using them for years, and for the most part, everything that I’ve found seems to be accurate and useful information.

They both offer example sentences, they both offer kanji support; meaning you can look up the Kanji and see how they’re written, how they’re read, their origins, their meaning, and the radicals that they use. They both offer information on whether the word is common or not, and best of all, they’re both free.

Takoboto’s cooler (maybe)

However, if you’re looking for a Japanese-English dictionary, I think my recommendation would be picking Takoboto over Jisho.org. One of the best things about Takoboto is that you can actually use it offline. You can download it for Android, Windows, and I believe the Kindle. This is pretty essential because sometimes you’re on the go and you don’t necessarily always have a connection to the internet.

Another interesting feature that Takoboto has is that it has word lists that you can use; among them, we have the JLPT word list. So if you’re studying for the JLPT, that’s a useful feature right there. Takoboto also offers an intonation key, which is something that I don’t see in Jisho.org, so it lets you sort of visualize where the stress is in the word so that you can pronounce it better.

3. DeepL (Translation app)

Aside from this cool Japanese dictionary selection I also have other tools that I use to study. Next up, we have number three, DeepL. DeepL is an AI, before AI was a thing, translator. So when I say that, I mean that it was around before language models like ChatGPT, and it’s 100, or if not a thousand, or even more times better than Google Translate. It’s more accurate and produces more natural-sounding translations.

I use it mostly to very quickly confirm the meaning of Japanese phrases that I’ve senn either in shows that I’m watching or in books that I’m reading. I usually pop them into DeepL and figure out the closest approximation to that phrase in English.

Another interesting way I use it is that I will grab an English phrase and translate it to Japanese. Even though it sometimes makes mistakes, I find that the result is natural enough, most of the time. It’s not perfect, but it’s very close.

Nice thing about this one, is that it’s available online and also offline on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.

It does have a paid subscription, but I feel, for the most part, you don’t actually need it. So, here’s the link on screen if you want to check it out.

4. HiNative (Interact with Natives)

Next up, we have HiNative. So before I mentioned that DeepL sometimes makes mistakes. if you have a phrase that you translated from English to Japanese that you absolutely need to be accurate and natural, HiNative is what I would use to confirm that.

Here you can ask actual natives of the language that you’re learning, and get their opinion on the phrase that you’re studying. So you can ask questions like, “Does it sound natural?”, “How do you say this?”, “Could you show me how to pronounce this?”, or “Could you check my pronunciation?”, etc.

Another cool feature about HiNative is that it has live streams, so you can connect with streamers that are talking or learning your target language.

There is a paid subscription, and unfortunately, the ‘Does this sound natural?’ question is locked behind that payment. However, I think you can get away with using another question format, and asking if it sounds natural. I see a lot of people doing that, and it works out for them 🤫.

5. Tatoeba (Example Sentences)

And last but not least, Tatoeba is an extremely large collection of example sentences, written in various languages. The sentences are community-driven—there’s actually a dedicated set of mods that curate the sentences and check that they’re correct.

I believe it’s an indispensable tool for finding example sentences of your target language.

Bonus: Tofugu Article

So here’s a little bonus: I found this article on Tofugu talking a Japanese dictionary that you can use, and I think it’s Mac-based. So for all you Mac users, maybe you’ll find something here.

Anyway, if you’re interested in my favorite method of study using these tools, let me know in the comments, and we’ll make that content for you.

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