Best Free Japanese Learning Apps in 2026

Japanese has a huge app ecosystem, and most of it is built around either kanji drilling or grammar reference, rarely both alongside real conversation practice. Every app below has a Japanese course you can try for free. Not all of them let you finish it without paying.

This list is ranked on the free version alone: what's included, and what starts costing money. Wekos's Japanese course is first because nothing in it is metered.

1. Wekos

Sixteen sequenced units drill real Japanese sentences with native audio in a male and a female voice. Every sentence breaks down into its words, then its chunks, then five variations that change one piece at a time.

A particle guide lays out the particles that never map cleanly onto English side by side, with audio for each one, and romaji sits beside the script throughout rather than replacing it, including on every quiz option. Speaking cards score whether you were understood, using your phone's own recognizer with nothing sent anywhere.

None of it, the particle guide, the romaji, the conversation scenarios, sits behind a cap, a trial or a card.

It also includes, at no cost:

• Three playback modes (auto, semi-manual, manual), with repetitions adjustable from 2 to 15.
• A story every unit, read aloud in character, with comprehension questions and a translation a tap away.
• A twelve-question quiz at the end of every unit, graded on the server and mixing in questions from earlier units.
• Two spaced-review modes: one on a schedule, one that ignores it and drills whatever's catching you out.
• Resume exactly where you left off, save any unit for offline use, and one account across iOS, Android and the web.
• Streak tracking and a self-issued CEFR badge at A1, A2 and B1.

2. Duolingo

Duolingo's Japanese course is free to play indefinitely, built around short matching and translation exercises. Hearts limit how many mistakes you can make before waiting or practicing to earn more, and ads appear between lessons on the free tier.

It's a good habit-forming app, and Wekos tracks streaks too, so that part isn't unique to Duolingo. Particle usage, one of the harder parts of Japanese, gets much less dedicated attention than in a course built around it.

3. LingoDeer

LingoDeer's grammar explanations are genuinely strong for Japanese, written for English speakers rather than translated generically. The free tier includes the full alphabet section and all of unit one; past that, a subscription starting around $15 a month is required.

4. Memrise

Memrise's Japanese course uses short clips of native speakers, which is useful for natural pronunciation early on. The free tier is ad-supported and caps how many lessons you can take before a paywall appears.

5. HelloTalk

HelloTalk matches you with native Japanese speakers for free, text or voice, with built-in translation. There's no structured course underneath it, and translation usage is capped on the free tier, so it works best as a supplement once a course has given you something to say.

6. Ling

Ling covers Japanese as one of its 60-plus languages, which trades depth for breadth. Almost all of its lesson content sits behind a subscription starting around $15 a month.

7. Quizlet

If a teacher assigned a specific Japanese word list, Quizlet turns it into flashcards in minutes, free. It has no native audio, no grammar teaching and no sequence of its own; it drills whatever list you give it.

Which one to actually start with

If you want to finish Japanese rather than sample it, start with Wekos. It's the only course here with no limit on the free version, and it's built around the parts of Japanese most apps gloss over, like particles. Add HelloTalk once you have a few units behind you and want to use it with a real person.

For the broader picture across all eight languages Wekos teaches, see our best free language learning apps roundup.