Looking for the right application to can be a daunting experience. How can we tell which applications are better than others when they all seem so similar? When I studied Japanese in university I didn’t need to look outside of the classroom for guidance, but after graduating with a degree in Japanese in an English speaking country, I found myself struggling to retain everything I worked so hard to learn. There’s always room to grow in both vocabulary and confidence when learning a new language, and because of this I started testing various Japanese language apps to see what best suited my learning style. Five years — and many apps — later, I moved to Japan and realized I could read much more than my last visit three years prior. Much of this progress is owed to, while also expanding my vocabulary with real world examples.

In this post — the first in a three-part series about learning Japanese on the go — I’ve included six applications that each have their own creative take on so you can focus less on the search and more on your path to fluency. Lessons can begin without any previous knowledge of hiragana or katakana with DuoLingo and testing past beginner levels is available. All the lessons are grouped into fun categories that range anywhere from food and family to subculture. There’s even an Olympics category in anticipation of the Tokyo 2020 games. Once a category is completed, a power bar appears beneath it. After a while the bar will start to recede, prompting you to review that lesson.

Along with focusing on vocabulary, DuoLingo puts emphasis on sentence structure. When it comes time to be quizzed, the app likes to keeps things interesting and will test you in various ways. Eventually, you’ll find yourself translating English sentences into Japanese or selecting English terms from a word bank to recreate Japanese sentences. For extra motivation, you can find help in the DuoLingo community. • iPhone: • Android: • Monthly Fee: No • Human Japanese.

Human Japanese may have debuted earlier than most applications reviewed here, but this in no way negates how beautiful and powerful it is. Designed for beginners, it feels as if you’re working your way through an interactive textbook. Lessons are divided into chapters, complete with gorgeous images, audio and quizzes at the end. Cultural notes have even been added, convincing me even more that this is truly a textbook in mobile form. If you’re already well-versed in kana there is an intermediate application that is just as wonderful. Having learned hiragana and katakana in the first application, kanji is introduced accompanied with furigana (kana over or beside kanji to indicate pronunciation). If you’re looking for a well-balanced and graceful way of studying, this is absolutely for you.

• iPhone: • Android: • Monthly Fee: No • iKnow. Regardless of how you learn best, iKnow exposes you to audio, text and images simultaneously as you study. If you want to start studying Japanese but don’t know the hiragana or katakana characters yet, it’s not an issue. IKnow has a course to teach you and from there you can start the core lesson series. Each series will walk you through 10 steps, all building on what was previously introduced.