Wakatta: Learn Japanese

Mariano Matayoshi

About this app

Wakatta turns the real Japanese podcasts and YouTube videos you'd enjoy anyway into lessons you can actually understand.

Press play and follow a live transcript that lights up word by word as it's spoken. Tap any word you don't know for its reading, meaning, and part of speech — without leaving the audio. When a whole sentence won't click, tap Explain and an AI sensei breaks down the grammar in plain language.

Lost the thread but don't want to stop? One tap marks the last ten seconds — eyes-free — and it's waiting for you afterward, already explained. The words and moments you save become spaced-repetition flashcards, replayed with the exact sentence and audio you first heard.

WHY WAKATTA
• Real, native audio and video — not textbook dialogues
• 170+ hand-picked Japanese YouTube channels, plus the open podcast world
• Instant word lookup: reading, meaning, and part of speech in one tap
• AI grammar explanations for any sentence, in your language
• "I got lost" — mark a confusing moment hands-free and review it later
• Spaced-repetition review with the original audio or video
• Furigana and romaji toggles, karaoke-style highlighting
• Follow shows and channels, and build your own library

It's the immersion you'd do anyway, just made comprehensible. Start free.

What’s new

Bring your own audio: import a Japanese audio file or link and we'll transcribe it, so you can tap any word, read along with furigana, and save what you're learning — just like with the shows.

Plus bug fixes and improvements.