rikAI
Join the waitlist

Your Japanese study app for iPhone

Learn Japanese
from what
you love.

The videos you watch. The posts you read. The Japanese around you. Turn it all into daily study with rikAI.

Tap to understand. Save to Anki. Make it stick.

Coming to iPhone. One email when it’s ready.

See rikAI in action Offline tools · optional cloud Ask
YouTube X posts Photos
Draw kanji
Save to Anki
rikAI on iPhone: a Japanese sentence with furigana and explanations of the grammar behind it.
Meet your everyday Japanese app.

In the app·iOS

View your content. Watch YouTube through rikAI!

A Nintendo Direct playing inside rikAI on iPhone: the subtitle ミニゲームやボードゲームを楽しむ with furigana over the kanji, and the full transcript listed beside the video.

Watch native content on the go!

Open YouTube through rikAI to look up definitions, pronunciations, and get AI context-based explanations.

Get rikAI for iPhone →

An X post from Duolingo Japan opened inside rikAI, with furigana shown over the kanji in the post.
The word 助かる tapped in the post: reading たす, the meaning to be saved; to be rescued, an Add to Anki button, and two suggested questions to ask Rikai.

Scroll social media through rikAI!

Open X inside rikAI. Furigana on every post, and any word is one tap from its meaning, pitch, and Anki.

Get rikAI for iPhone →

Japanese reading practice, in full · The Japanese photo translator

単語カード·sentence mining

Save words for Anki.

  1. rikAI showing the sentence お店に行ってみたんだけど、迷ってしまったんだ。 with furigana over the kanji, and three matched grammar notes underneath it.

    Read

  2. The word 店 tapped inside the sentence. A panel shows the reading みせ, the meaning “store”, an Add to Anki button, and three suggested questions.

    Tap

  3. The finished card in AnkiMobile: 店 on the front; on the back みせ, four senses, the sentence it came from with its English, and the pitch accent みせ［2］ with audio.

    Study

What lands on the card

  • The wordin dictionary form, not the conjugation you tapped
  • The readingas ruby over the front, a line on the back, or off
  • Pitch accentthe drop number, in its own field
  • The meaningevery JMdict sense, not just the first
  • The sentencethe one you found it in, for context on the back

Your collection, your rules

  • Deck & note typeany deck, any note type you already study
  • Field mappingyou name the field each piece goes into
  • Tagswhatever your workflow expects
  • Duplicate checkrikAI remembers words you add; Anki checks its own duplicates

機内モード·airplane mode

Ask offline on supported iPhones.

Translation, the dictionary, grammar notes and pitch data work on your phone. Local Ask needs at least 4 GB of memory and an installed reasoning model, with cloud Ask off. On lower-memory phones, Ask needs your cloud permission and an internet connection. Check device requirements.

  • 47words looked up today
  • 12grammar notes read
  • 0requests sent

No rikAI account needed. Translation and dictionary tools work offline. Optional Ask with ChatGPT sends questions, recent context and assistant preferences through Cloudflare to GPT-5 nano. It is off by default. Data sharing and usage records.

発音·pronunciation

rikAI helps you understand and sound like a native.

  1. rikAI showing 私は日本語を話します with furigana, and a Pitch grader button in the row above it.
  2. The grader: each phrase drawn as a pitch contour with the matched morae in green, your take and the native reading plotted against each other, and the verdict 4 of 4 movements matched.

rikAI grades your pronunciation and pitch accent.

比べる·the alternatives

Why not just use what
you already have?

rikAI compared with DeepL, Yomitan and Manabi Reader
rikAI DeepL Yomitan Manabi
Explains the grammar, not just the word
Ask follow-up questions
On-device translation and dictionary
Works on iPhone
Camera text you can tap
Anki export without a desktop
Grades your pitch accent

はじめに·why this exists

Teaching myself Japanese gave me a thorough love-hate relationship with Anki — and a running list of things I wished existed. I was tired of waiting on Jisho for every lookup, tired of writing every card by hand, tired of tools that could tell me what a word meant but never why the sentence worked. rikAI is that list, finally built.

— Ryan, founder of rikAI.

Coming to iPhone · no account · optional cloud Ask

Sign up for the waitlist — one email at launch, nothing else, ever.