Unlock the Secrets of Kanji with Nihongo 1.31

Chris Vasselli -

This is a huge update to Nihongo, taking a massive leap forward in making kanji more understandable to learners. Learning kanji is one of the most challenging parts of learning Japanese, and is a common place that learners get stuck or give up. Making kanji learning easier is an important part of making the entire Japanese language more accessible.

Most Japanese dictionaries present kanji as a compilation of individual elements with their own specific meanings. This is actually a common misunderstanding of how kanji work. The truth is, each element can contribute a different thing to the kanji — a specific meaning, a broad category, or a pronunciation. Understanding the true contribution of each element can unlock a richer understanding of every character, helping learners to remember them easier, learn new characters faster, and even guess at rough meaning and pronunciations for characters they’ve never seen before.

This information has always been available, but until now it required the use of an etymological dictionary and knowledge of a verbose and esoteric set of terminology like “ideogram” and “phonosemantic compound”. As far as I know, Nihongo is the first Japanese dictionary to compile this information into a user-friendly, learner-focused presentation that unlocks the learning potential of this content (without requiring a degree in linguistics).

Download the update here.

Major Features

  • Kanji Breakdowns - A new way to understand the elements that make up every kanji.
  • Kanji Element Details - Learn the role that each element plays in a kanji, and its common meanings and pronunciations.
  • Kanji Histories - Learn the history of each character and see its evolution over thousands of years.

Other Improvements

  • Add kanji readings for non-joyo kanji (thanks Andrew!)
  • Add a clearer error message when sync fails because another one of your devices is on a later version of the app.

Bug Fixes

  • Fix meaning text for 把. (thanks Björn!)
  • Fix issue where tapping on search tab while unviewed photos were remaining in photo lookup mode, popping all the way to search screen would not be prevented on iOS 17.
  • Fix 私から being parsed as ひそから (thanks Gerhard!)
  • Fix 細かいお金 in french (thanks Alexis!)
  • Fix contained words for 三重県 (thanks 810Teams!)
  • Fix search bar not transitioning to compact correctly. (thanks to a bunch of you!)