Nihongo Sensei: Minna

Paul Campos Gil

About this app

Nihongo Sensei is the companion app for Minna no Nihongo: the vocabulary, the example sentences and the kanji readings of lessons 1 to 28 — all of the first book and the start of the second — organised exactly the way your textbook is.

If you are studying with a teacher or on your own and you want the phone in your pocket to follow the same order as the book, this is that app.

LESSON BY LESSON
1,061 words and 1,061 example sentences, split by lesson. Study lesson 12 and you practise lesson 12 — not a random pile of vocabulary from a level you have not reached yet.

AUDIO YOU CAN ACTUALLY USE
Every word and every sentence recorded in advance, in two voices and at two speeds. It sounds the same on every phone and it works with no connection, because nothing is streamed.

THE DOJO
Studying is not enough. The Dojo is where you practise, in six rooms:
Verbs — all four forms, and the rule you need when you get one wrong.
Adjectives and nouns — is, is not, was, and how they go before a noun.
Sentences — the lesson's pattern, with the verb in the form it asks for.
Kana — the whole of hiragana and katakana, and the pairs everyone confuses.
Listening — hear a word and write what you heard. It catches the things English and Spanish speakers never hear: the double consonant in きって, the long vowel that turns おばさん (aunt) into おばあさん (grandmother).
Numbers — from zero to a million, including the readings that change: 300, 600, 800, 3000, 8000.

Get one wrong and it does not just say "incorrect". It names the rule, and shows you the other words that follow it, so the next one is not a guess. "My rules" keeps track of what you are weak at and what you no longer miss.

NO ACCOUNT. NO INTERNET. NOTHING COLLECTED.
There is nothing to sign up for and nothing leaves your phone. Your progress lives on your device, and the whole app works on a plane, on the underground, and in a classroom with no signal.

ENGLISH AND SPANISH
The whole interface, in either language, switchable at any time.

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Independent study aid. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the publisher of any textbook.

What’s new

Lessons 26, 27 and 28: vocabulary, sentences, audio and grammar.
Aki, a fourth skin for autumn, in light and dark.
New welcome videos across all four skins, and a better layout on iPad.
Hundreds of corrections to sentences and readings.