Shinobi: Read & Learn Japanese

Shinobi LLC

In-app purchases

About this app

Learn Japanese through illustrated stories, native audio, shadowing, quizzes, and interactive reading tools.

Shinobi Japanese helps you build reading, kanji, vocabulary, grammar, listening, and speaking skills through content that feels immersive, practical, and actually enjoyable. Instead of memorizing isolated words and grammar points, you learn Japanese in context through stories, audio, news reading, and smart review tools.

At the core of Shinobi Japanese are illustrated stories designed to make Japanese reading more accessible and more engaging. Each story unfolds page by page with Japanese text, visuals, and English support, helping you understand the language naturally while staying motivated. Whether you are a beginner or already building toward higher-level reading, Shinobi helps you turn reading into steady progress.

Inside every story:

• Tap any word for translations, readings, explanations, and examples
• Full-page translation for quick comprehension
• Furigana toggle to adjust the challenge level
• Grammar explanations built directly into the reading experience

Shinobi Japanese is not just about reading. It also helps you improve listening and speaking through audio and shadowing practice.

Train your listening and speaking:

• Native Japanese audio for every story
• Slow audio mode for easier comprehension
• Shadowing practice to improve pronunciation, rhythm, and speaking confidence

Kanji and vocabulary are learned in context, not in isolation. This makes them easier to understand, recognize, and remember over time.

Build kanji and vocabulary in context:

• Learn kanji through meaningful sentences
• Save useful words as you read
• Review them later with SRS flashcards
• Reinforce understanding with quizzes

Shinobi also helps you keep learning beyond story mode.

More ways to learn:

• Read Japanese news
• Download stories for offline reading
• Track progress with XP, streaks, badges, and rewards

Shinobi Japanese brings together illustrated stories, native audio, shadowing, grammar support, kanji tools, quizzes, news reading, offline access, and smart vocabulary review in one place. Instead of splitting reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary across different apps, Shinobi gives you one immersive learning experience that helps Japanese stick.

If you want a more effective and engaging way to learn Japanese, Shinobi Japanese helps you build real reading fluency through content you will actually want to come back to every day.

Download Shinobi Japanese and start reading your way to fluency.

Ratings and reviews

I just finished level two. I already knew the kana and some common kanji, and it let me skip past learning them again. The stories get progressively more difficult, but are still set up in a way that makes it easy to understand how words fit. I'm able to piece together the definition without translating the whole page. I really like that you can subscribe, but you don't need to in order to access the whole app.

enjoying this app. I appreciate that the free version is still usable, unlike a lot of other apps. The AI art put me off at first but I understand it's a small development team and they do make it more engaging. some feedback for the developers: it would be nice if the words are highlighted as they are spoken with the audio and sometimes it is a little hard to scroll within the text box on my phone (pixel 9 fold). Love that this has comprehension quizzes. highly considering purchasing.

just doing one or two lessons a day, it introduces vocabulary and grammar at a good pace, with some repetition but not too much (reinforcement is good). even if you are using this app for free, you can learn a lot with just your two credits a day, and if you want to study more you can review the stories you've already read. the app's layout and navigation is super easy. I'm learning Japanese with various games and apps, this app is a great supplementary tool.

What’s new

Various Bug Fixes