6 Free Tools I'd Use to Learn Japanese, If I Could Start Over (From Viewers)

On my 12 free Japanese Learning tools video, viewers recommended some AMAZING Japanese study tools that are also free. So I figured I'd share them with YOU, so you can start having even more fun learning Japanese!
Beginner to Intermediate COURSE: www.tokiniandy.com
DONATE: tokiniandy.com/donate
DISCORD: / discord
jpdb: jpdb.io
Nihongo (iOS only): nihongo-app.com/
SuperNative: supernative.tv/ja/
Mokuro: github.com/kha-white/mokuro
Language Reactor: www.languagereactor.com/
Game2Text: game2text.com/
Yomichan Video: • How to Set Up and Use...
OTHER Free Tools Video: • 12 Free Tools I'd Use ...
Search Term
"Game Name 実況プレイ"
0:00 Intro
0:13 Japanese Dictionary (Viewer)
1:19 Dictionary App (Viewer)
2:39 Listening and Speaking Japanese (Viewer)
3:47 Reading Manga (Viewer)
5:17 Watching Japanese Videos (Andy)
6:30 Trick for Finding Let's Plays
7:56 Reading Japanese Books (Andy)

[@-k4349]

Didn't see anybody mention Renshuu - it's quite amazing.

[@Pruflas-Watts]

As an upper level learner, the only thing I use these days is Takoboto. Takoboto has all of the official JLPT N1 - N5 tango and kanji lists laid out and can be organized into pre made flash card format, eliminating the need for Anki at all. Even when word mining or learning new words, you can easily look them up and add them to custom study lists much faster and more intuitively than Anki. I also like being able to scroll back and forward to whatever word I want without having to rely on frequency of appearance. The only other thing I do is watch anime, play text heavy JRPGs and read the news to accumulate N1 level and un-frequent vocab.

[@adamabou-nasr1130]

I absolutely love renshuu but never hear anyone talk about it

[@jacobamason]

One of the best language reactor features is that it adds a button to the search bar that will only return videos that have Japanese subtitles. LR needs the subtitles to work and videos where KZbin auto-generates them aren't always translated properly.

[@koohii3301]

Thank you for mentioning this. I was wondering how Andy easily found 実況プレイ with subtitles.

[@cresythe5522]

This video and channel is a godsend for me, I cannot express how much gratitude I have for this channel. Also this channel is the main reason why I put more effort into learning Japanese, so thank you!!

[@kira_y]

More and more new tech stuff keeps coming out. Excited to see some tools I wasn't yet aware of.

[@AzuraPichu]

This is honestly great, it will make learning japanese so much easier with this tool, thanks for making this video. ありがとうございます！

[@Mobik_]

Glad SuperNative helped 😊 I'll download Language Reactor 👀

[@humanbean3]

im still using the anki + yomichan combo from your guide from way back. it's indispensable. かけがえのない!

[@thenerdynova4880]

Wow, I'm absolutely going to start using jpdb as a dictionary. Thank you so much!

[@Vika0885]

Awesome video!! I will be definitely looking into Yomichan! Thank you!

[@ToKiniAndy]

Yomichan has been taken over by someone else, and is now called "Yomitan", but everything I said still applies! 😊

[@Trevor-ic9hf]

Hey Andy! I hope during you're kanji series you explore etymology approaches along with the traditional ones that are popular in the community (RTK etc). I started with Outlier Linguistics etymology dictionary, but found a book that had more memorable explanations called World Of Kanji. I also bought a book on kindle called Kanji Code for phonetics and found that it had useful information for etymology and explained well what exactly Japanese kanji is.

[@spacethreads]

Amazing video as always! thank you for the great content Andy San, I'll definitely start using these tools from now on! :)

[@ToKiniAndy]

Thank you Space Threads! I hope that they help! =)

[@zesanx]

Wow I did not know some of these and I've been at it for a while! Thank you Andy

[@ToKiniAndy]

You're welcome! I hope you can get some use out of them!

[@pharohphox7829]

Hello, I have really been enjoying your content and I am currently working through your Genki series for JLPT5. Many of these tools have been helpful in getting me started and keeping me on track. While most of the stuff you are sharing is for more advanced linguists, one that I found really helpful for starting from step 1 of learning Hiragana and Katakana is "Write It! Japanese" on my iphone.

[@ToKiniAndy]

Forgot to pop-up the comment which made me think of let's plays by "Poppy Boney in VR". Thank you too! Also, it appears that Kitsunekko is just blocked in Japan. You can likely still access it from other countries. Edit: @PapaBoneyinVR

[@PapaBoneyinVR]

Poppy Boney XD

[@ToKiniAndy]

@@PapaBoneyinVR hahah autocorrect strikes again.

[@r.8902]

I just started learning Japanese a month ago and I'm so glad I watched this video when I did. I'm self-teaching and these are all going to be so incredibly helpful. I really want the Genki books but currently I cant afford it right now but I can in the next month or so, so I'm trying to find any way to practice until I can get the books

[@Rationalific]

Cool stuff to check out!

[@jormungand72]

I use Takoboto as a dictionary, and Kanji Study for kanji, although the latter is paid if you want anything past the lowest level lessons. But it also has some great features like Graded Reading Sets, Guided Study (very much like wanikani, but much cheaper and better imo), and Outlier Essentials; which shows you the breakdown of how kanji are formed, the radicals used, their origin and changes throughout history, and pretty much all the info you need to really get a solid understanding of what makes a kanji. Great for burning them into your brain for the way that I learn. Its also got a lot of voices and supports text to speech for the words it doesnt already have. There are many ways to study from flashcards, handwriting (I bought a drawing tablet just to get better), and multiple choice with many different customizable options for each.

[@coolbrotherf127]

Very helpful, thanks. The last one looks to be very helpful when trying to play visual novels in Japanese.

[@tamagoO3O]

Wow all these tools are insane! I definatly need to download yomichan and language reactor.

[@ToKiniAndy]

Yomichan is indispensable! And Language Reactor looks REALLY good, doesn't it!

[@user-xz5bk6xh2b]

It should be illegal how underrated this channel is !!! Keep up the great work! love the videos BTW are you planning to do a n1 course to complete the jlpt package

[@ToKiniAndy]

Thank you! I'm sort of undecided on N1. If I do, it won't be until after I do my planned kanji course, and perhaps a revisit of earlier grammar. But we may get there eventually! =)

[@user-xz5bk6xh2b]

@@ToKiniAndy A KANJI COURSE ! Is this good news day or what

[@tobinkaestner]

実況プレイ Is a great suggestion thanks!

[@thomascrossland3548]

Thank you

[@Colorado-Wedding-Studio]

This Nihongo picture taking app is literally exactly what I've been searching for for SO LONG. Wow...Thanks so much for sharing Andy!

[@Colorado-Wedding-Studio]

Got that as well as language reactor and im STOKED

[@oshurumuru]

Creator of Nihongo here 😄If you have any feedback/requests after checking it out don't hesitate to reach out! 😊

[@Colorado-Wedding-Studio]

@@oshurumuru Thanks so much Chris! I’m loving it so far. I’ll certainly hit you up with any thoughts! 😃

[@nico576]

@@oshurumuru any plans on an Android release? Thanks!

[@oshurumuru]

@@nico576 I would LOVE to make the app for Android someday. But as a solo dev, it’s simply too much work to take on. If Nihongo ever blows up and I make enough to hire someone to help me out, an Android app is something I would love to do. But unfortunately, no plans at the moment. Sorry!

[@nonfatcat]

Super helpful！

[@ToKiniAndy]

I'm glad to hear that! Thank you for watching! =)

[@Marta-fu1et]

Thank you thank you thank you!

[@Bwubdle198]

These videos are amazing and perfectly timed lol. I have ADHD so i have weird spurts of wanting to work and Japanese which is something i’m working on (ADHD) so once i start not wanting to work on japanese too much, i see a notification for one of your videos that was just uploaded then i get the boost again lol. The videos are also so good too and very helpful.

[@invisiblechicken]

I have ADHD too, so trying to learn has been really frustrating. I was undiagnosed until recently too.

[@jayp9158]

Just take your pills and start studying

[@invisiblechicken]

@@jayp9158 for your information, yes, I do take medication, but I don’t know if you think medication is magic or something, but it’s not a perfect fix. Also, side effects vary from person to person and so what is good for one, is intolerable for someone else. They may be changed to a different type of medication, or it may be decided medication may not be an effective option for them. Telling people with ADHD to just take medication and start studying just sounds like a rather pathetic attempt to be needlessly cruel to people you don’t know. And well, wouldn’t that be sad for you if that were the case?

[@ivanoviich5847]

I forgot about super native and up to last night I was trying to remember the name and I couldn't. Not to mention you opened my eyes to a few new ones as well. Thanks so much Andy

[@ToKiniAndy]

Glad I was able to help! Thanks for watching! =)

[@ivanoviich5847]

@@ToKiniAndy No prob sensei 🙏🏻

[@Rhythm162.]

Language reactor reminded me of migaku, although I'd say migaku is superior because you can import your anki deck to it, therefore when watching content it'll highlight words that you don't know yet (saved me a lot of times from adding the same word multiple times, along with having the confidence that I know I've studied the words before if I don't see anything highlighted) they also have a pitch accent trainer app which is Hella good

[@ToKiniAndy]

I find it hard to recommend Migaku, because they seem to find tools like this and copy, then add one tweak to make it their own. I'm pretty sure Language Reactor was first to the party. With that said, Migaku DOES offer value in that they pull all the cool tools others are making together and usually blend it with Anki well.

[@capitalismoburgues5549]

I have been using migaku since January and it's sooooo much easier to mine cards that I am doing an average of 20 per day and not feeling tired at all! I would never mine 20 words without migaku (maybe 10) it takes so much from the boring part of mining and let's you focus on the content

[@lustful-chan5991]

I mostly agree that Migaku is good but wouldn't not say superior, really. It just streamlines it the process. That you could just do it yourself with Free Tools and just as easily! I will say that the tool that highlights the word you know, that are learning, matured and new is something very convenient and that most apps should have it. When more apps add this, Migaku will become obsolete. I also know for a fact that their support is pretty bad and their updates are very slow. Migaku should be much better for being a paid app. I know things take time but there are features that they promised and having been work for weeks and they never give updates on them at all. I stopped using after too months because of that, it felt very shady the way they do things.

[@capitalismoburgues5549]

@@lustful-chan5991 I would argue the principal appeal of migaku is the convenience, I tried using something like Memento to sentence mine and it were so frustrating that the next day I subscribed to migaku and started mining every day, also for reference, how good is your Japanese? How many words you have you mined and how much can you read and watch?

[@scottpilgram696]

Lol Andy who cares if they rob other tools ideas?? This is about us having the best tools 😂 give me a program that robs every good idea and puts it together! I will support it!

[@aaronpowell3003]

Hey Andy, I'm using JPDB as a big component of my study and just wanted to let you know that you can undo reviews by hitting the back button in your browser.

[@ToKiniAndy]

Good to know!

[@aaronpowell3003]

@@ToKiniAndy Something else really good about it, and the main crux of the website, is that after using it for a little bit, you can sort the novels by "known vocab" so you can pick a book where you know 90% of the vocab already. Then you can get JPDB to teach you the remaining 10% in the chronological order it will appear in the book, so you can start reading the native material straight away and learn the content as you go. This obviously then causes a domino effect where by doing the extra 10% vocab raises the known vocab of all the other books, making them more accessible too. It's really cool! Oh and the SRS algorithm is also very, very good.

[@ToKiniAndy]

Yeah, that sounds really intriguing. My main gripe is that I find it difficult to navigate design-wise. FEATURE wise, it seems amazing. I'd love to use that particular feature, but I can't imagine the headache of trying to mark the 20k+ words I know as known, before I could really get the best use out of it! haha I wonder if there is a way around that.

[@TimBrownYoutube]

@@ToKiniAndy They could have some checkboxes to mark all vocabulary known by JLPT level etc and also have wanikani and bunpro integration etc which could help onboard a lot of folks.

[@sarahr.3241]

@@ToKiniAndy I think I might have seen an Anki import tool somewhere in the settings for marking words as known!

[@DoubtX]

Since your last video, I discovered that chatgpt can be immensely useful for breaking down the grammar of Japanese sentences. You can feed it a Japanese sentence, and ask it about the part of the sentence you don't understand and it can usually tell you the correct grammatical structure that's being used with a short explanation of how it works. You might need a couple follow up questions to nail down the explanation you're looking for, but I've always been able to get the information I needed. I've used it about a dozen times, and I only had one failure where chatgpt told me that the に in a sentence I fed it was a location marker, when the sentence did not include a location. After pointing this out to it, it corrected it's error. You can also ask it to write you short stories in Japanese, using beginner level vocabulary and grammar, about anything you'd like. Which means you have infinite, albeit pretty bland, stories at your disposal.

[@sammilearns]

i'm so glad you mentioned JPDB in this video. free version or subscription, it really is a good tool and you actually CAN undo cards by just going back. it'll ask you to confirm the change and you can update it. :)

[@cakes1831]

Holy crap I've never heard of any of these and it's exactly what I've been looking for

[@AndrewKln]

I was just sitting and painfully doing my own Genki decks, then this video drops in my recommendations. It was so lucky that you accidentally showed that JPDB have Genki decks.

[@CanalWolfy]

Exactly what i needed)

[@ToKiniAndy]

Glad to hear it! =)

[@colinbarth7439]

To use Mokuro for Kindle, someone actually recently made a compatiblity layer that outputs pdfs from mokuro. That way you can read on kindle and use dictionaries on kindle for instant lookup (like yomichan). Its a pretty crummy process all in all but I could explain if anyone is interested.

[@jinjurbreadman]

so where do the manga that you put in mokuro even come from? is it true (like Andy said) that they are mostly illegal?

[@cheesetee3420]

I like let's play! My laptop can't handle game. So I go into watching let's play to make it feel like I'm playing hahaha Annndd I'm also learning Japanese. In N2 at the moment, and the listening section is sooo difficult 😭 Thankyou for this! I hope this helps me to memorize vocabularies ❤

[@xXDESTINYMBXx]

I can also recommend akebi as a dictionary for Android. It's free has a lot of features and has no ads. It shows the composition of the kanji too.

[@ToKiniAndy]

Thank you for the recommendation! =)

[@tams805]

I've used Akebi since it launched. I applaud the developer for the hard work and many features, and trying something different. But the mess of UI colours really doesn't help. I've found Takoboto to be better UI wise. And they both use the same base dictionaries.

[@xXDESTINYMBXx]

@@tams805 for me the ui colours are fine, nothing I would complain about. It's probably mostly personal preference.

[@paulreeves8251]

@@tams805 I've used both and akebi is my current go to.

[@Kelthraz]

Nihongo is very slick!

[@liadashkina3054]

Thank you very much!! My favorite tool for learning Japanese is animelon

[@halkuon]

Powertoys is made by Microsoft for Windows.. After installing it, you can hit windows key + shift + T. It will let you drag a box around some text and it will OCR it, putting it right into your clipboard to use however you'd like.

[@francisbecht9005]

Hey Andy I bought some of the books you suggested in an earlier video and I was wondering if there are books like when I was a kid learning the alphabet where it shows you stroke order and you copy it a few times but for the three scripts of Japanese

[@sharonparsons5375]

thank you for all the suggestions. Couldn't help wondering if your Anki decks are literally thousands of words in size though :)

[@ToKiniAndy]

I don't really use Anki much any more! Recently, I use it for re-learning to write kanji, and I have one for words that I find while reading that are fairly common, but that I don't know for some reason. So my decks are quite small! =)

[@kikuraged1815]

The creator of Game2Text made a new version where you can play the hole game on full screen and you only have to put the mouse over the word to read it

[@killhour]

If you turn off hardware acceleration in your browser settings, Netflix can't hide itself anymore.

[@cheesetee3420]

I don't know why, but my Yomichan + Anki doesn't work.. I don't know maybe I did it wrong so it didn't connect well? Well, I guess I'll just manually type it in google sheet hahaha Who knows, it might be a better way to study for me since I have to type and read and search the meaning my self Thankyou for the video!

[@Kaiyes_]

how about doing a best tools ( regardless of paid or free ) ? Like how does pimsleur compared to all these ?

[@nicholasfriesen2642]

I really like the drops app! It is free or you can pay! What do you think of this learning tool for Japanese??

[@ZitronenChan]

Hardware-Acceleration is causing Netflix to go dark, because of piracy i believe but if you turn it off you can record it 🙂

[@Bwubdle198]

What do you think about living in japan? I’ve wondered if i’ve wanted to live in japan in the future, or just even visit it. What do you think about living in japan?

[@cameronsaunders9020]

lol go visit a couple of times first to see if you enjoy living there. I wouldn't stay long term for my own personal reasons but, everyone is different.

[@XRatedPoetry]

"somehow" Netflix is DRM content, that's how 😂

[@flashgordon6510]

Are there any free tools that will make a transcript from a Spotify podcast?

[@davidhume6993]

Try watching youtubers like じゅきや　（じゅきぱっぱ） the videos might be offending to some people (?) but they are funny and it is a really good way for listening comprehension cus he speaks very fast and its natural japanese how young people speak. also the videos are actually pretty funny

[@sethaldrich6902]

Wow I wish I was tech savvy so I could use these to connect to each other

[@mikascreative]

does anyone know of an android alternative for the 2nd app (Nihongo)? it'd be so useful 😫

[@2_ratsplz]

Love the 2010s JB hairstyle

[@ToKiniAndy]

Going back to my roots. 😅

[@felitastic]

Is Language Reactor broken? The website doesn't work for me :(

[@neight227]

Happy late birthday

[@Ashir0gi_Sensei]

@Tokini Andy With all due respect, I don't think that was a fair assessment of Migaku. Saying that they just put out what was already out there is completely untrue. They created the pitch trainer and that didn't exist in any other form, and now there's a free version created after the fact. Also, the migaku parser while far from perfect, underlines all the words and highlights them different colors on words you know and you don't know, that has also never been done before. It's almost as if you seem to be implying that once an application exists that there's no room for competition. That whomever's first should win, and that be that. But that discourages creativity and innovation. It's like saying I won't get an HBO max subscription, because they're just copying netflix.

[@ToKiniAndy]

Thanks for the feedback. You may be right. All the drama around Migaku combined with all the tools being recommended to me being nearly the same as tools I already use from years ago just means I have very little motivation to dig much deeper. You may be right that if I dug deeper I’d find it is better than I expected. But from the surface, I get turned off at ever corner. I know they are helping tons of people though, and I think combining all these tools under one umbrella is definitely useful for people. =)

[@UnimportantAcc]

Yo Andy u been to Hiroshima? Or Fukuoka? Not got anyone here so looking for stuff to do. Just been to the war memorial stuff today.

[@ToKiniAndy]

If you’re in Hiroshima take a train ride out to Onomichi and treat yourself to some ramen, a bike ride, and the sites! 🙂

[@Ushiromiya_Beatrice]

For kanji: Kanji Koohii and KanjiDamage 👀

[@ToKiniAndy]

Those definitely deserve an honorable mention! =)

[@asbestosflake5749]

Do you have a video for the best paid apps? I have lots of money and little time. So I want the best of the best. I need to learn as efficiently and quickly as possible

[@MrShadowThief]

Based.

[@AnthonyJerome]

07:00 BALD

[@ToKiniAndy]

He and I have one thing in common, that's for sure. haha

[@nold9432]

japanese kanji and chinese kanji in total 180,000 characters. in fact, 200 characters useing everyday. by japanese. can do it!

[@strideryoko]

Dat 髪 tho

[@gabi.a]

2:40 it's a shame you can't pick your level 🙁

[@vasis2275]

Kanjidamage for learning kanji

[@neight227]

🍞

[@whoareyou3185]

ah, a fellow asmongold enjoyer

[@ToKiniAndy]

haha yess

[@sarahr.3241]

😊

[@ToKiniAndy]

はやい！

[@madmax8620]

O M G!!! ...learning how to and using all that, is more difficult than learning Japanese itself!

[@ToKiniAndy]

No need to use it all! Just ones you find interesting. =)

[@madmax8620]

@ToKini Andy easy for you to say.. cuz your a freakin genius with a constant super charged motor! What does your wife feed you that grants you those abilities???(should make a video on that!!..your diet) ha

[@bealotcoolerifyoudid7217]

So Yomichan doesn't really work anymore does it? Also that Language Reactor doesn't work on YT beacause of the recent ANTI AdBlock efforts.. God damn.

[@ToKiniAndy]

Yomichan still works for me, but is no longer being updated.

[@bealotcoolerifyoudid7217]

@@ToKiniAndy I've been looking through the app store it isn't even there. Sort of a different very bare bones version of it. Bummer