Yaku: Japanese Dictionary

Yaku is an offline Japanese-English and monolingual Kokugo dictionary built for learners and speakers. Featuring Material 3 design, Yaku has no ads, no analytics, no telemetry, and no subscriptions. All lookups and handwriting recognition run 100% locally on-device.

Search vocabulary with hashtags, check verb conjugations, draw kanji, tap words to explore, read native Japanese definitions, verify pitch accents, or export study decks to Anki.

KEY FEATURES

* Interactive Tap-to-Search: Tap any headword, reading, alternate form, or kanji tile to search immediately. In Kanji details, tap meanings or readings to discover matching words without retyping.

* Offline Handwriting Recognition: Draw kanji or kana directly on screen. Powered on-device by DaKanji CNN via ONNX Runtime, recognizing 6,500+ characters with zero telemetry.

* Visual Pitch Accent & Categories: Master Japanese intonation with pitch curves, overbars, downstep numbers (⓪–⑳), and category badges (⓪ Heiban, ① Atamadaka, ② Nakadaka, ③ Odaka).

* Verb & Adjective Conjugations: Offline inflection tables for Ichidan, Godan, Kuru, and Suru verbs. Inspect 20+ forms across polite, potential, passive, causative, and desiderative (〜たい) paradigms.

* Monolingual Japanese Definitions (国語): Switch seamlessly from English glosses to native Japanese definitions from Wiktionary and WordNet to build advanced comprehension.

* Japanese-English Dictionary & Readable POS: 200,000+ entries with definitions, clear part-of-speech labels (e.g. [ichidan verb, transitive]), readings, JLPT levels, and common tags.

* Search & Hashtag Filters: Bidirectional search across English, kanji, kana, and romaji with de-inflection. Filter with tags like #common, #n1–#n5, #gairaigo, and #waseieigo.

* Kanji Lookup & Stroke Order: Animated stroke diagrams powered by KanjiVG, plus a 214 Kangxi radical picker. Filter kanji by school grade (Grade 1–8 / Jōyō) and JLPT level.

* 1-Tap Direct Anki Export: Export vocabulary and lists to standard Anki decks (.apkg) on-device. Customize templates, pitch diagrams, and examples, with deep links back to Yaku.

* Bilingual Example Sentences: Thousands of paired Japanese and English sentences from Tatoeba to see vocabulary in natural conversational context.

* Built-in Thesaurus & Synonyms: Explore WordNet semantic networks. Compare synonyms, hypernyms, and hyponyms to master subtle nuance differences.

* Sentence Breakdown: Paste full sentences to segment them into individual words, conjugated forms, and particles with one tap.

* Japanese Names Dictionary (JMnedict): 740,000+ proper nouns, including surnames, given names, places, stations, and companies.

* Loanword Etymology & Wasei-eigo: Trace katakana loanword origins to Dutch, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, or English, and identify Japanese-made English (#waseieigo).

* Custom Study Lists & Bookmarks: Save entries to favorites, organize custom study lists, and create full zip backups of your bookmarks and settings.

* Adaptive Landscape Layout: Optimized 2-pane handwriting canvas and radical picker layout for landscape phones, foldables, and tablets.

* Modular Dataset Toggles: Customize your experience by toggling pitch accents, names, definitions, conjugations, or examples in Settings.

* Privacy: No accounts, no analytics, no telemetry, and no ads. Lookups run entirely on your device.

DATA SOURCES & LICENSES

Yaku builds upon open linguistic datasets curated by the community:
- JMdict & KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG)
- JMnedict Japanese names dictionary (EDRDG)
- Wadoku pitch accent data (Wadoku e.V. & Ulrich Apel)
- Kanjium pitch accent data
- Japanese WordNet (NICT)
- Kaikki Wiktionary Japanese definitions
- Tatoeba bilingual example sentences
- KanjiVG stroke order vector data (Ulrich Apel)
- DaKanji handwriting recognition model (Dariyooo)

Full license texts and attributions are available inside application settings.