Apple added a second ad to App Store search results. My downloads stayed flat, my costs doubled
After the recent rollout, overall downloads stayed steady but a large chunk of what used to be organic downloads shifted into paid downloads instead.
Nihongo Blog
The making of a modern Japanese dictionary.
Latest posts
Nihongo gets improved search and huge kanji updates in version 1.34 update
Nihongo 1.34 is here, and it brings some quality-of-life improvements like multi-word search, as well as a huge update to the kanji breakdowns and etymology. I've updated the kanji data to include more detailed origin stories for over 1000 kanji, and added 300 more
Nihongo 1.33 brings huge improvements to the quality of definitions in non-English languages
If you use Nihongo in any language other than English, you'll know that definitions fall into two buckets: those natively written in your language, and those machine translated from the English definition. Despite having around 200,000 dictionary entries, only about 10-40% of those have definitions available
Nihongo Lessons All Access Pass now available
I’m excited to share a new way for you to unlock everything inside Nihongo Lessons: the All Access Pass ! Up until now, Nihongo Lessons has offered individual lessons a la carte, and an "All Lessons" option to purchase them all as a one-time purchase. With
Transcrybe is Here
I’m excited to finally share that my new(ish) Mac app, Transcrybe , is now live! If you’ve been following my work, you might remember a little menu bar app I released last year called Subtitle Me . It started as a tiny tool to subtitle live speech
A New Way to Start Learning Japanese with Nihongo Lessons 1.2
Learning Japanese as a beginner can feel overwhelming, especially with unfamiliar scripts like hiragana and katakana. With Nihongo 1.2, we’re making those first steps easier and more approachable than ever. This update introduces a guided learning system that transitions seamlessly from familiar English letters (romaji) to hiragana
Black Friday Sale 2024
Black Friday sales for Nihongo and Nihongo Lessons are now live, and will run through December 2nd! Nihongo – 50% off lifetime subscriptions to Nihongo Pro. Nihongo Lessons – 50% off all courses, including the all 7 courses pack. You can literally get all 7 courses for just a little
Unlock the Secrets of Kanji with Nihongo 1.31
This is a huge update to Nihongo, taking a massive leap forward in making kanji more understandable to learners. Learning kanji is one of the most challenging parts of learning Japanese, and is a common place that learners get stuck or give up. Making kanji learning easier is an important
iPad gets a big update in Nihongo 1.30
The latest update to Nihongo brings a modern sidebar-style interface when running on the iPad (and Apple Silicon Macs)! My goal with this update was to use the iPad's extra screen space to make it quicker and easier to get back to search (via text or photo
iCloud Sync and Notes come to Nihongo Lessons in Version 1.1
I just published the first major update to Nihongo Lessons, with two of my most requested features - cloud syncing between devices, and the ability to add your own notes to flashcards. Download here . Major Features Cloud Syncing - Your progress, notes, and preferences will now be synced automatically to all your
Big improvements to Photo Lookup in Nihongo 1.29
Nihongo 1.29 is out, and it's all about improvements to the experience of using photos, screenshots, and your camera to look up words and make flashcards. Download here . Major Features Bulk Photo Lookups - Select multiple photos and look up words in all of them at once. Copy
Nihongo Lessons is here
My latest app, Nihongo Lessons, is now available on the App Store! You can download it here . Think of Nihongo Lessons as the textbook to Nihongo’s dictionary. It’s an app for learning Japanese, specifically made for learners who are serious about becoming fluent, and want a
Update on Jalup Integration
Just a quick update from me, since I know I've been quiet for a while. Since completing my family's move to Japan in August, I've been hard at work on the Jalup integration with Nihongo. In the end I decided it made more sense
Stop Xcode 14 beta from draining your battery
There's a bug in Xcode 14 betas 4-6 that causes your CPU to go crazy and drain your battery. Here's a workaround.
Nihongo + Japanese Level Up
Nihongo will be the new home of the Japanese Level Up (Jalup) learning system starting this fall.