KanjiMateFor iPhone and iPad

Read, write and remember kanji.

A kanji dictionary and study companion for JLPT N5 to N1. Look up all 2,230 kanji for free, watch how each one is written, and write it yourself with feedback. The whole N5 course is free to study, with no ads.

Download on the App StoreSee what is inside

Free to download. Premium is one purchase, not a subscription. Requires iOS 26 or later.

The Levels tab of KanjiMate on iPhone. Under JLPT Levels are four cards: Beginner, N5, with 103 kanji; Intermediate, N4, with 181; Advanced, N2 - N3, with 739; and Expert, N1, with 1,207. Each card has a bar split by card state, and the N5 bar is almost all green. A legend under the cards reads Mastered, Learning, Relearning, New and Not added. Below it, My Groups starts with a group called Everyday Basics. The tab bar holds Levels, Favorite, Learning with a badge of 36, Stroke Order and search.

Learn 2,230 kanji, from JLPT N5 to N1.

KanjiMate arranges its kanji in the level groups commonly used for JLPT study. Every kanji at every level is free to look up. Studying with scheduled reviews is free for all of N5, and Premium adds the three levels above it.

  1. N5

    Beginner

    103 kanji

    Free to look up
    Free to study

  2. N4

    Intermediate

    181 kanji

    Free to look up
    Study with Premium

  3. N2–N3

    Advanced

    739 kanji

    Free to look up
    Study with Premium

  4. N1

    Expert

    1,207 kanji

    Free to look up
    Study with Premium

Each bar is as long as its level is large. N1 alone holds more than half of the kanji.

Read every kanji in full.

An entry puts everything about one kanji on one page: what it means, how it is read, how it is written and built, and the words that use it. Nothing in the dictionary is locked.

The entry for 本 on iPad, in two columns. On the left are the kanji with chips for N5, Grade 1 and 5 strokes, a diagram of its five strokes, numbered and colored, the meanings book, present, main, origin, and the readings, on'yomi ホン and kun'yomi もと. On the right are the radical 木, tree, Radical #75, the components 木 and 一, the story, A line marks the root of a tree: the ORIGIN of a BOOK, and the first four of 20 compounds: 基本的, 三本, 基本 and 見本市.
The entry for 食 on iPhone: a diagram of its nine strokes, numbered and colored, with the forms Standard and Kaisho under it; a Meaning card, eat, food; a Readings card with on'yomi ショク, ジキ and kun'yomi く.う, く.らう, た.べる, は.む; and the start of the Radical card.

  • Meanings and readings

    The meanings in English, then the on'yomi and kun'yomi readings. Tap the speaker to hear the kanji spoken.

  • A stroke diagram

    Every stroke numbered and colored in the order it is written, beside the kanji's level, grade and stroke count.

  • Radical and components

    The radical and the parts a kanji is built from. Tap a part to open it.

  • A story to remember it by

    Every kanji comes with a short mnemonic story. Add your own when you have a better one.

  • Compounds and example sentences

    Words that use the kanji, each with its reading and meaning, and sentences with their translations. Most entries have both.

  • Your notes and favorites

    Keep a note on any kanji, and star the ones you want to find again in the Favorite tab.

  • The Compounds card of the entry for 食 on iPhone, with a count of 20. Each word has its reading in kana and its meaning in English: 健康食品, health foods; 試食, sampling food; 月食, lunar eclipse; 給食, school lunch; 間食, snacking; 衣食住, the necessities of life.

    Vocabulary for each kanji

    The Compounds card lists the words a kanji appears in. 食 has twenty of them.

  • The entry for 明 on iPhone, scrolled to its Radical card: the radical 日, sun, day, Radical #72 with 4 strokes and a small drawing of a sun; the components 日, sun, day, and 月, moon, month; and the story, The sun and moon together make everything BRIGHT. Below it, a Notes card reads 明日 (ashita) is tomorrow. 明るい (akarui) is bright, and a Tags card holds one tag, Adjectives.

    A kanji taken apart

    明 is the sun beside the moon. Its radical, its components and its story share one card, with your own note and tags under it.

  • Search on iPhone with sun typed in the field at the bottom of the screen, and 7 results, each with its on and kun readings: 日, day, sun, Japan, counter for days, marked Learning; 陽, sunshine, yang principle, positive; 旭, rising sun, morning sun; 礁, reef, sunken rock; 凹, concave, hollow, sunken; 晏, late, quiet, sets (sun); and 煕, bright, sunny, prosperous, merry.

    Search by character, meaning or reading

    Type 漢, sun, かん or カン. Search looks through every kanji, its English meanings and its on and kun readings.

A whole level at a glance.

Open a level as a list, or switch it to a grid of kanji tiles. A tile's color is the state of its card, so you can see where a level stands without reading a word.

Long-press a tile to favorite the kanji or add it to your deck.

New
In your deck, not studied yet.
Learning
Seen for the first time lately. It comes back soon.
Mastered
It has moved on to spaced reviews.
Relearning
Forgotten in a review, and being learned again.
Not added
Not in your deck.
Beginner (N5) on iPad as a grid of kanji tiles, ten to a row, starting 日, 一, 国, 会. Above the grid are a progress bar and the filters All 103, New 4, Learning 6, Relearning 1, Mastered 92, Liked 10 and Has Note 2. Most tiles are tinted green; a few are orange, two are blue and one is red, and some carry a star.
Beginner (N5) on iPhone as a grid of kanji tiles, four to a row, starting 日, 一, 国, 会. Above the grid are a progress bar and the filters All 103, New 4 and Learning 6. Most tiles are tinted green; a few are orange, two are blue and one is red, and some carry a star.

Write it, stroke by stroke.

Stroke order stays with you once your hand has done it. Watch a kanji being written, then write it yourself and see how close you came. Both are free, for the 2,230 kanji of the levels and thousands more.

Kanji stroke order, one stroke at a time.

Stroke Animation writes the kanji in order, each stroke in its own color with its number beside it. Play it through, or step forward and back one stroke at a time.

Where a kanji has more than one accepted form, such as the traditional kaisho shape, you can switch between them.

Stroke Animation on iPhone, paused on the kanji 書 at stroke 8 of 10. Eight strokes are drawn, each in its own color, over a gray outline of the whole character, with a number beside each stroke. Below the canvas are the forms Standard and Kaisho, a progress bar reading 8 / 10, five playback buttons with pause in the middle, and a row labelled Practice Writing, Draw the kanji yourself.

Stroke order beyond the levels.

The Stroke Order tab holds 11,651 stroke diagrams. They cover 6,421 kanji, nearly three times the 2,230 of the levels, along with hiragana and katakana.

Some characters appear more than once: 4,959 entries are variants, either another accepted shape, such as kaisho, or another accepted stroke order. Filter by level, favorites, your deck or a group, search by character, and open any entry in Stroke Animation or Practice Writing.

The Stroke Order tab on iPad, filtered to Intermediate, reading 303 results of 11,651. Beside the filters All, Intermediate, Favorite and In Deck is a search field, Search by kanji or meaning. A grid of characters, ten to a row, starts 同, 事, 自, 自, 民, 発, 発, 発, 者, 者. The same character often appears two or three times in a row, and each variant tile carries a small label naming it, such as Kaisho, DgLst, Dg3, VtLst or KaishoVtLst.

Japanese handwriting practice, scored out of 100.

Practice Writing gives you a canvas. Write the kanji on screen, tap Check, and the app scores what you wrote on four counts. Strokes that need work are marked on the canvas.

Strokes5
The right number of strokes.
Order20
Each stroke written in its turn.
Accuracy50
How closely each stroke follows the model.
Shape25
How well the whole character holds together.

Guide shows the character under your strokes, and Hint draws the stroke you are on. An attempt made with either is recorded as guided, so your best score with help and your best without it are kept apart.

The Practice screen on iPhone after checking a handwritten 本: five strokes in black ink over the gray guide, and a score sheet that reads Excellent, 96 out of 100, with four rows, Strokes 5/5, Order 20/20, Accuracy 49/50 and Shape 22/25, above the buttons Draw Again and Done. Three chips above the canvas read 12 Practiced, 96 Guide and 78 No Guide.

More room on iPad.

The canvas is larger on iPad. On a wide screen the character, your records and the stroke order tips stay on one side while you write on the other.

Practice on iPad for the kanji 本, in two columns. On the left are the character, three chips reading 8 Practiced, 96 Guide and 78 No Guide, and a card of Stroke Order Tips. On the right is a large canvas with 本 written in black ink over the gray guide, the options Guide, Grid and Hint 5/5 under it, and the buttons Undo, Clear and Check.

Remember it, with reviews that come back on time.

Add a kanji to your deck and it becomes a card. KanjiMate schedules every card with FSRS, a spaced repetition algorithm: a kanji you know well stays away for weeks, and one you keep missing comes back soon.

Kanji flashcards that know what is due.

A flashcard asks for the meaning of a kanji, or for the kanji behind a meaning. Show the answer, then say how it went.

Again10m
You missed it.
Hard31d
You got there slowly.
Good45d
You knew it.
Easy73d
No hesitation.

Each button shows when that answer brings the card back. These four are for the card in the picture, one that is already Mastered. A new card starts with minutes and days.

A flashcard on iPhone with its answer shown, in a Today's Due session with 36 cards left. The kanji is 休, marked Mastered, with the meanings rest, day off, retire, sleep, the readings キュウ and やす.む, the radical 人, human, and the story, A person leans against a tree to REST. Four grade buttons sit underneath: Again in red with 10m, Hard in orange with 31d, Good in green with 45d and Easy in blue with 73d.

Or review by quiz, or by hand.

Choose Flashcard, Quiz or Draw before a session. All three feed the same schedule.

  • A quiz card on iPhone: the meanings rest, day off, retire, sleep above four kanji to choose from, 作, 何, 体 and 休, with 休 marked in green. Under them it reads Correct, Good, Answered in 6s, above a Next Card button.

    Quiz

    Pick the right answer from up to four. A right answer is graded by how quickly you gave it, and a wrong one counts as Again.

  • A Draw card on iPhone in a Learning Cards session with 15 cards left. The kanji 部, marked Learning, with the meanings section, bureau, dept, class, copy, part, portion, sits above the canvas, where 部 is written in black ink over the numbered gray guide. The score panel reads 95, Excellent, with a Guide chip, Excellent work! and First Practice!, and four scores: Strokes 5/5, Order 20/20, Accuracy 48/50 and Shape 22/25. Under it are the buttons Draw Again and Next.

    Draw

    Write the kanji on screen. It is scored stroke by stroke, as in Practice Writing, and in a review the score becomes the grade.

Know what is due. Keep your streak.

The Learning tab opens on Today's Review with the number of cards due, and your streak beside the week. Your deck is underneath, filtered by state.

  • Extra practice leaves the schedule alone

    Difficult Cards, Learning Cards, Random Review, Preview New Cards and Practice by Group are practice only. Your due dates stay where they were.

  • Your own pace

    Set how many new cards to take each day and a daily review goal: 20 and 200 to begin with. They are your settings, and you can keep going past the goal. No plan limits how much you study.

  • Streak Save

    Study three days in a row to bank a save. Miss a single day, and finishing that day's due cards keeps your streak.

The Learning tab on iPhone in Dark appearance. A green card reads Today's Review, 36 cards due. Under it, a 47 day streak sits beside a week from Sunday to Saturday with three days filled. Filters read Queue 202, New 31 and Learning, and the queue starts with 休 and 明, both marked Mastered and Due.
The Learning tab, in Dark appearance.

Kept in front of you, and kept in sync.

The small things that hold a daily habit together. All of them are part of the free app.

  • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets

    Study Streak shows your streak, the cards due and this month's study days. Other widgets show a kanji from your favorites or from your deck.

  • A daily reminder

    Pick a time. The reminder stays quiet on a day you have already studied.

  • iCloud sync

    Reviews, study history, favorites, notes, tags, groups and practice records sync between your iPhone and iPad through your own iCloud account. There is no KanjiMate account to create.

  • Achievements

    A hundred levels across ten tracks, for streaks, reviews and handwriting. They are yours to earn without Premium.

  • Light, Dark or System

    Pick an appearance, or let the app follow your device.

An iPhone Home Screen with two KanjiMate widgets beside the app icon. A small widget shows the kanji 本 with the meanings book, present, main, origin, true, real, and the readings ホン and もと. A medium Study Streak widget shows a 47 day streak and 36 cards due beside a calendar of October, with every day from September 27 to today, October 14, filled in.

Free to read, free to start, one purchase for the rest.

The dictionary is free at every level, and so is the whole N5 course. Premium takes your study deck from N4 up to N1. You buy it once.

Free

$0

The whole dictionary, and the complete N5 course.

  • All 2,230 kanji entries, from N5 to N1
  • Stroke Animation and Practice Writing for every kanji
  • Radicals, components and mnemonic stories
  • Search, favorites and your own notes
  • The N5 course: 103 kanji with Flashcard, Quiz and Draw
  • FSRS scheduling, with no limit on how much you study
  • Your streak, four key statistics and the last 7 days of history
  • Achievements, widgets, reminders and iCloud sync
  • No ads

Premium

$9.99 once

Everything in Free, and a study deck that goes all the way to N1.

  • Add N4 to N1 kanji to your deck: 2,127 more
  • Flashcard, Quiz and Draw with FSRS at every level
  • Tags, and custom study groups built from them
  • Progress charts, a yearly heatmap and a monthly calendar
  • Your complete study history

Premium is a one-time lifetime purchase of $9.99, with no subscription and nothing to renew. The price is in USD on the US App Store, before local tax. Monthly and yearly subscriptions are no longer sold; one bought in an earlier version keeps working as before.

The reports Premium adds.

Study History is free as far as your streak, four statistics, your achievements and the last seven days. Premium opens the rest: a heatmap of the last twelve months, a monthly calendar, charts of cards, accuracy and time, and every past session.

Study History on iPhone with Premium. At the top, Achievements reads 47 / 100, with the tracks Streak at level 5, Dedicated at level 6 and Review at level 6. Under it, a Last 12 months heatmap in shades of green runs from June to October, and a calendar for October 2026 reads 14 days, with every day from September 27 to October 14 filled in.
Achievements are free. The heatmap and the calendar under them come with Premium.

Built for iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo.

A native app for iOS 26 and later. When the screen is wide enough, as on an iPad in landscape or the inner screen of iPhone Duo, lists and details sit side by side.

The Learning tab on iPad with the sidebar open. Today's Review shows 36 cards due, beside a 47 day streak and the week. Filters read Queue 202, New 31, Learning 15, Mastered 156 and Due 30. Under them the deck runs in two columns of cards, each with its kanji, meanings, readings and state: 休, 好, 都, 回, 天 and 千 on the left, 明, 産, 田, 飲, 木 and 山 on the right.
The entry for 本 on the inner screen of iPhone Duo, in two columns. On the left are the kanji, chips for N5, Grade 1 and 5 strokes, its stroke diagram and the start of the Meaning card. On the right are the radical 木, tree, the components 木 and 一, the story, A line marks the root of a tree: the ORIGIN of a BOOK, and the first of 20 compounds. The clock, a back button and the tab bar run down the right edge of the screen.
A kanji entry on the inner screen of iPhone Duo.

  • Two columns on wide screens

    Levels, Learning, Favorites, Search, Radicals, Tags and your groups show more at once. In an entry, the meaning and readings sit beside the radical, vocabulary and sentences.

  • A larger canvas on iPad

    Practice Writing and Stroke Animation give you more room to write and to watch.

  • Pointer and Apple Pencil hover

    Buttons, cards and rows highlight under a mouse, a trackpad or a hovering Apple Pencil.

Questions before you start.

Short answers about the kanji, the study method and what you pay.

What is KanjiMate?

KanjiMate is a kanji dictionary and study app for iPhone and iPad. It covers 2,230 kanji in the level groups commonly used for JLPT study, from N5 to N1, with meanings, readings, vocabulary, example sentences, stroke order, radicals and mnemonic stories. Every kanji is free to look up and the whole N5 level is free to study; Premium adds N4 to N1 to your study deck.

How much does KanjiMate cost?

KanjiMate is free to download and has no ads. The dictionary is free at every level, and so is the N5 course. Premium is a one-time lifetime purchase of $9.99, with no subscription. The price is in USD on the US App Store, before local tax.

What is free, and what does Premium add?

Free: every kanji entry, Stroke Animation and Practice Writing for every kanji, search, favorites, notes, widgets, reminders, iCloud sync, achievements, and the complete N5 course of 103 kanji with Flashcard, Quiz and Draw. Premium: adding N4 to N1 kanji to your deck, creating tags and custom study groups, and the advanced reports, which are progress charts, a 12-month heatmap, a monthly calendar and your complete study history.

Is KanjiMate Premium a subscription?

No. Premium is a one-time lifetime purchase with nothing to renew. Earlier versions also sold monthly and yearly subscriptions; those are no longer offered, and an existing one keeps working as before until you cancel it in your Apple Account settings.

Does KanjiMate have ads?

No. KanjiMate shows no advertising on either plan and contains no advertising SDK or ad tracker. Your study data is not used for advertising and is not sold.

Is there a daily limit on reviews?

No plan limits how much you study. Deck Settings lets you choose how many new cards to take each day, 20 to begin with, and a daily review goal, 200 to begin with. When you reach the goal you can keep going.

Which kanji are in each JLPT level?

KanjiMate uses four groups: Beginner (N5) with 103 kanji, Intermediate (N4) with 181, Advanced (N2–N3) with 739 and Expert (N1) with 1,207, which makes 2,230. They follow the level groupings commonly used for JLPT study. The JLPT does not publish an official kanji list for each level.

Does it show the stroke order of every kanji?

Yes. All 2,230 kanji have stroke order, and the Stroke Order tab goes further: 11,651 stroke diagrams, covering 6,421 kanji, hiragana and katakana, and 4,959 variant shapes and stroke orders, such as kaisho. Stroke Animation writes each one stroke by stroke, with every stroke numbered and in its own color, and you can step through it one stroke at a time. It is free for every kanji.

How is my handwriting scored?

In Practice Writing you write the kanji on screen and tap Check. The score is out of 100: 5 points for the right number of strokes, 20 for their order, 50 for the accuracy of each stroke and 25 for the shape of the whole character. Guide and Hint are there when you want them, and attempts made with them are recorded apart from attempts made without.

What is FSRS?

FSRS, the Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler, is a spaced repetition algorithm. It estimates how likely you are to still remember each card and schedules the next review for when that chance falls to your target, 90% unless you change it. A card you find easy comes back less often, and a card you forget comes back sooner.

Does it sync between my iPhone and iPad?

Yes, and it is free. Reviews, study history, favorites, notes, tags, groups and practice records sync through your own iCloud account. There is no separate account to create.

Does KanjiMate work offline?

Yes. The dictionary and your study data are stored on your device, so looking up, writing and reviewing kanji work without a connection. iCloud sync catches up when you are back online.

Which devices and languages does it support?

KanjiMate runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 or later, and it lays itself out in two columns on wide screens such as the inner screen of iPhone Duo. The interface is in English, and meanings are given in English. There is no Android or web version.

What is new in version 1.3?

Version 1.3 brings two-column layouts to wide screens, such as an iPad in landscape or the inner screen of iPhone Duo, and adds a grid of kanji tiles to every level. Practice Writing and Stroke Animation use a larger canvas on iPad, a long press in Stroke Order opens the animation or the practice canvas, and buttons, cards and rows highlight under a mouse, a trackpad or a hovering Apple Pencil.

Start with N5. It costs nothing.

Download KanjiMate and the whole dictionary is yours to read, with the complete N5 course to study. Go on to N4 when you are ready.

Download on the App Store

For iPhone and iPad. Requires iOS 26 or later.

  • No ads, on either plan
  • No account: sync runs through your own iCloud
  • No subscription: Premium is bought once
  • The whole N5 course, free