iOS · JLPT N5–N1
Nazoru is a reading tool, not a dictionary. Tap any word in the text and its reading, pitch accent and meaning come up. Save it and the sentence you were reading comes with it — that sentence is what you see again at review.
iPhone and iPad. iOS 18 or later.
HOW IT WORKS
The text is split before you touch it, so you cannot grab half a word. The bundled dictionary is matched first and longest match wins, which is why 一日中 stays one word instead of breaking into 一 and 日中.
THE VOCABULARY LIST
Other apps keep the word. Nazoru keeps the form it appeared in, the reading of that form, and the sentence around it. That is the whole difference, and everything else follows from it.
Saved as it appeared, with the reading of that form — not silently normalised to the dictionary entry.
Kept whole. At review it comes back with the word blanked out, so the context helps and the answer does not.
The source is stored too, so a word you saved months ago still tells you where it came from.
PITCH ACCENT
Two words can be identical in shape and differ only in what the following particle does. If a pitch line stops at the end of the word, the two are the same picture — so Nazoru always draws the particle.
はしが — the drop lands on the particle.
はしが — no drop; it stays up.
Same two syllables, same shape. Without the particle there is nothing to see, which is why learners can go years without hearing the difference.
REVIEW
Scheduling is FSRS-5 with the published weights, computed on the phone. You choose the pace — relaxed, standard or thorough — which sets how much you aim to remember; the intervals still come from FSRS. Nothing about your list is sent anywhere to decide when a word is due.
The sentence you saved comes back with the word blanked out. You are remembering something you actually read.
Including the particle. Testing a reading while hiding the one clue that distinguishes it would make the test meaningless.
At an hour you choose, carrying the number of words and grammar waiting — and only on days something is actually due. Delivery is up to iOS.
GRAMMAR
Every book has the list of points. What is missing is the pair you keep getting wrong, set side by side, with the one question that settles which to use.
Which part is new, and which part is what you are talking about.
Whether the first half is how you did it, or why.
Whether the second half is allowed to contain someone's intention.
N5 through N1. Chosen for contrast rather than coverage — a list of three hundred points is not what stops the mistake. A point, or a contrast between two of them, can be put into review — the same queue as your words, not a second pile.
SAFARI EXTENSION
Turn on tracing in Safari and the words on the page become tappable exactly as in the reader. Turn it off and the page is an ordinary page again. What you save from a web page joins the same list, with its sentence and its source.
A mode rather than always on: tapping everything would break the links, and drag-selecting misses the word boundary, because Japanese is not written with spaces.
Not on a web page? Paste it into the app, or send it from another app through the share sheet — a textbook passage, a message, a news story. Each text shows what share of its words have meanings, so you know before you start. Pasted texts stay on your phone.
EXPLANATION LANGUAGE
You choose one language — English, Chinese (Simplified or Traditional), Vietnamese, Nepali or Korean — and that is what the app explains in. The notes for each were written for that language's readers rather than translated from another, because readers of different languages trip over different things. Two examples:
Warnings where the characters look familiar and mean something else — 地味, 東洋, 面接.
How the word is used — a common phrase, the register — and a warning where two words sound the same: 名刺 and 名詞, 感想 and 乾燥.
Japanese is always shown as it is. Words you have already saved keep the explanation they were saved with, even if you switch later.
OFFLINE
The dictionary is inside the app, so reading, looking a word up and review all work with no network at all. There is no server of ours, no account to make, and no model running while you read — the readings were compiled in advance, because a reading is the one thing this app must not get wrong.
PRICING
The reader, the vocabulary list, review, grammar and the Safari extension all work. Meanings and grammar explanations are shown for N5 and N4, and for the 1,507 words outside the JLPT lists.
Buy once, or subscribe monthly
The 7-day trial starts the first time you open the app — there is nothing to tap — and it does not turn into a subscription by itself. Readings and pitch accent are free for every word, at every level. The price shown in the App Store applies, and varies by region.
QUESTIONS