Reelang: Learn Japanese

Reelang

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About this app

Textbook Japanese is slow. Real Japanese is fast. Study the real language with 6,000+ short videos by native speakers, in a feed that starts at your level, even if that is zero.

Reelang looks like a normal short video feed, except it adapts to your level of Japanese. You watch real TikToks, YouTube Shorts and other clips, and we add new ones all the time.

You scroll. Reelang keeps finding Japanese videos you can understand.

Focus: built for starting from scratch

Never studied Japanese? Turn on Focus. It plays a clip one sentence at a time: listen first, then choose how much you understood. Stuck? Bring in the subtitles or break the sentence down word by word. Tap any word to see what it means. Words written in kanji also show how they're read in kana.

Once you understand sentences on the first listen, Focus stops pausing and lets the videos play.

Prefer to just watch? Flow is a scrollable feed of videos at your level, and a tap on any word gives the meaning.

Start with the easiest Japanese

The easiest Japanese comes first: common, basic vocabulary and clips with clearer, more accessible speech. The feed begins with the easiest Japanese and gets faster as your listening improves.

Standard Japanese, or Kansai-ben

Every clip is labelled with where it comes from, so you always know which Japanese you are hearing. Stay with standard Japanese, or switch to Kansai-ben for the dialect, accent and everyday speech of Osaka and the wider Kansai region.

Smart Subtitles show you what to learn first

Not every word is equally worth learning. Smart Subtitles show you which ones to learn first. You see whether a word is among the 500, 1,000 or 2,000 most common words in Japanese, and anything rarer shows its frequency rank.

Use subtitles. Then hide them.

Use Smart Subtitles when you need help. When a clip feels easy, hide them and listen again.

Some videos have subtitles burned into the image. A normal player cannot remove them. Reelang can. Hide them and you are only listening, not reading.

Same clip, same voice, no text. Little by little you catch words, then sentences.

Learn vocabulary where people actually use it

A word sticks when you hear someone use it in a real situation.

Instead of working through lists, you come across new words in TikToks, Shorts and other clips from native speakers, slang included. Tap a word to keep it for review.

This is not a course or a series of audio lessons. It is everyday Japanese, spoken at the speed people actually speak it.

Entertainment you happen to learn from

Reelang is built on videos people would watch anyway: funny clips, stories, street interviews, everyday life. Not a lesson dressed up as entertainment, but real Japanese entertainment with learning tools built in. So coming back tomorrow feels more like watching than studying. And your watch time adds up, this week, this month and all time.

Started with anime? Keep going with real people

The feed has some anime, but mostly Japanese creators talking about their day, their food and their jokes, so you hear how Japanese sounds in everyday life.

Going to Japan?

A phrasebook tells you what to say, not what the answer means.

Preparing for the JLPT or the JFT-Basic?

Reelang is not an exam course and has no practice papers. What it gives you is the listening practice behind them: hours of everyday Japanese at natural speed, so real speech becomes easier to follow.

Working in Japan?

Japanese at work moves fast. Get used to hearing it before your first day.

Reelang+ is optional. It gives you unlimited Learner Insights explaining grammar, slang and why people say things the way they do (free accounts get a couple a day). It also brings saved words back in new clips so they stick, and unlocks your full Reelang Chart.

You can still watch and learn without it.

6,000+ videos of real Japanese, in one feed that meets you at your level.

Comprehensible input, vocabulary in context, immersion without moving to another country.

What’s new

First release of Reelang Japanese.