Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the questions we hear most. For step-by-step instructions on every feature, see the Help guide.
General
What is Yomit.ai?
Yomit.ai is a Japanese dictionary and study toolkit. Look up words and kanji, paste any Japanese text to get furigana and tap-to-define words, extract Japanese text from photos, hear text read aloud at a speed that matches your level, print kanji writing sheets, study phrases and signs for a first trip, browse JLPT grammar points, learn hiragana and katakana with stroke orders, and sit full-length JLPT mock tests. Everything runs in the browser — there is nothing to install.
Do I need an account?
Is there a mobile app?
Not a separate one — the site is designed to work on phones and tablets in the browser, including the camera button in the Image Assistant. Use your browser's "Add to Home Screen" option to open it like an app.
Do I need a Japanese keyboard?
No. Every text box that accepts Japanese has an
あ / A toggle beside it. Turn it on and type romaji:
tabemasu becomes
たべます, and pressing
Space offers kanji candidates. See
Typing Japanese in the
Help guide.
What are the AI features?
When you are signed in on a paid plan an AI switch appears in the header. Turning it on adds:
Dictionary: an AI explanation of a word's nuance, usage, and how it differs from similar words.
Reading Assistant: an explanation of how each word is being used in the sentence you pasted.
Image Assistant: AI vision reads the text in your picture instead of the standard OCR engine, which is more accurate on handwriting, stylised fonts, and busy backgrounds.
Listening Practice: a natural AI voice instead of the standard synthesised voice.
My Notes (Bunko and Sensei plans): the AI can improve a note, summarise a page, quiz you on it, or answer a question about it.
Everything else works the same with the switch off, and AI is never used unless you turn it on. Each paid plan includes a monthly allowance of AI tokens; see "What is an AI token?" below.
Where does the dictionary data come from?
Word, name, and kanji entries come from the JMdict, JMnedict, and KANJIDIC projects maintained by the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, together with other open projects for stroke orders, radicals, text recognition, and speech synthesis. The full list of sources and their licences is on the
Resources page.
Dictionary
What can I search for?
Type Japanese (kanji, hiragana, or katakana), romaji, or English. You can search for words, kanji, readings, and conjugated forms — searching 食べました finds 食べる and tells you which form it is. You can also paste a whole phrase such as 日本語を勉強しています and it is split into words for you.
How do I look up a kanji I can't type?
Click the
部 button beside the search box to open the radical search. Pick the components you can see in the kanji and the list narrows down as you go. If the kanji is in a photo or screenshot, the
Image Assistant can read it for you.
Where are the numbers, counters, colours, and the other word lists?
Search the word. あお, オレンジ, 四十七, 枚, 歳, 今日, 父, 誰, いくら, これ, 右, 朝, 雨, 頭, いつも, 家, 好き, and けど each show the dictionary entry and ask whether you wanted the list. Show opens it. While a collection is open, the buttons under the search box switch between the collections, including Body, Clock, Colours, Connectors, Counters, Demonstratives, Family, Feelings, Frequency, House, Numbers, Position, Questions, Time, and Weather.
Does the dictionary show conjugations?
Yes. Verb and adjective entries include a conjugation table covering the polite, negative, past, te-form, potential, passive, causative, conditional, volitional, and imperative forms.
Reading Assistant
What does the Reading Assistant do?
Paste any Japanese text and it is split into words with furigana above every kanji. Tap a word to see its dictionary entry without leaving the page. It is a good way to read articles, song lyrics, or messages that are slightly above your level.
Is there a length limit?
Yes, and it grows with your plan: 100 characters at a time with a free account, then 150, 500, and 1,500 on the Kanji, Bunko, and Sensei plans. Longer texts can be pasted in sections. There is also a monthly allowance of texts: 10 with a free account, then 25, 75, and 200, which resets with your billing period. The Reading Assistant needs an account; a free one is enough.
Image Assistant
How does the Image Assistant work?
Upload a picture, take one with your camera, or paste a screenshot. The Japanese text in the image is extracted and shown with furigana so you can tap any word to look it up — useful for menus, signs, manga, and game screenshots. The Image Assistant needs an account; a free one is enough. Every plan has a monthly allowance of images: 10 with a free account, then 25, 75, and 200 on the Kanji, Bunko, and Sensei plans; every read counts, including reading a straightened picture again or a selected area, and the count resets with your billing period.
Are my pictures stored?
No. The image is processed in memory and the temporary upload is deleted as soon as the text has been extracted. Only the recognised text is sent back to your browser.
Why was some of the text read incorrectly?
The standard OCR engine works best on clear, horizontal, printed text. Vertical text, handwriting, decorative fonts, and low-contrast images can produce errors. After the first reading, drag the straighten slider if the picture is tilted, then drag a box around the part you care about: that smaller crop is sent back to the reader and often comes out cleaner. Click the highlighted area to restore the original text. On a paid plan you can turn on the AI switch to use AI vision, which handles these cases far better.
Listening Practice
How does Listening Practice work?
Paste any Japanese text, choose the JLPT level that matches you, and press Listen. The speeds are labelled N5 - Slowest, N4 - Slow, N3 - Relaxed (the default), N2 - Natural, and N1 - Fast. Listening Practice needs an account; a free one is enough. The length limit grows with your plan: 50 characters at a time with a free account, then 150, 500, and 1,500 on the Kanji, Bunko, and Sensei plans, and so does the monthly allowance of recordings: 10 with a free account, then 25, 75, and 200, resetting with your billing period.
Can I download the audio?
Yes. Once the audio has been generated you can play it in the page or download it to listen to later.
Writing Practice
What does Writing Practice produce?
A printable PDF. Type or paste the kanji, hiragana, or katakana you want to practise (1 as a guest, 1 on the free plan and up to 25 on the Sensei plan), tap the characters you want on the sheet, and each one gets its own page with its readings and meanings, the stroke order, faded guide characters to trace, and empty boxes to practise writing on your own.
How many sheets can I make?
A free account includes 10 pages a month with the standard layout. The Kanji, Bunko, and Sensei plans include 25, 75, and 200 pages a month, allow 3, 10, and 25 characters on one sheet, and unlock the sheet options: paper size, characters per page, box size, guide lines, tracing guides and how much detail is printed. A sheet counts as the pages it prints to, so putting more characters on each page stretches the allowance. The count resets with your billing period.
Grammar & Kana
Which JLPT levels does the grammar guide cover?
All five, N5 through N1. Every grammar point lists its meaning, the usage rule (for example which verb form or adjective stem it attaches to), and example sentences. The key at the top of the page explains what terms like "Verb stem" and "Plain form" mean.
What is on the Learn page?
Short packs for a beginner, especially someone visiting Japan.
Phrases covers arriving, the station, a restaurant, a convenience store, being stuck, a hotel, paying, finding your way, and a pharmacy.
Signs is the words on doors and in stations, and the kanji they use.
Kanji adds the eighty characters taught in the first year of Japanese elementary school.
Politeness shows the same request three ways, and
Reading is short texts made from the phrases. Every Japanese word has an English phonetic reading under it, so こんにちは is shown with
kon-ni-chi-wa. Tap a word for the dictionary, listen to a line, or open it in the Reading Assistant. A phrase and a kanji also change each day, on the Learn page and on the dictionary home page. It is free, and you do not need an account. Open it from
Learn.
What do the Hiragana and Katakana pages offer?
Complete charts of both scripts, including the dakuten and handakuten rows, the combination sounds, and the extended katakana used for foreign words. You can toggle the romaji readings and typing hints on or off, and tapping any character opens an animated stroke order you can replay. The "Quiz Me" button on each chart starts a quick quiz: pick the tables to include, choose between recognising the kana, recognising the romaji, or typing the romaji, and review the characters you missed at the end. The quiz is free for everyone, guests included.
JLPT Mock Tests
What is a mock test?
A full-length practice exam at the level you choose, N5 to N1, with the same parts (Language Knowledge, Reading, and Listening), question types, and number of questions as the official JLPT. Listening questions come with audio. When you finish, every question is marked and you get an overall score and a score for each section. Mock tests are on the
JLPT Practice page.
How many tests can I take?
The Bunko and Sensei plans let you generate 1 new test per billing period, and you can retake any test you have generated as often as you like. The questions and answer order stay the same each time, so retaking a test after studying the questions you missed is a good way to check that you have learned them. In Practice your answers are saved as you go, so you can save and leave, then resume later.
Is the test timed?
Only if you start it under Exam conditions. Practice is untimed: a stopwatch tracks how long you have been answering, and you can save and leave whenever you like. Exam conditions counts down the official time for the whole test and submits it when time is up. If something comes up during an exam sitting, Leave exam keeps your answers and continues as Practice so you are not scored on a half-finished test.
Will my mock test score predict my JLPT result?
Treat it as a guide, not a prediction. The official JLPT converts raw answers into scaled scores and requires a minimum in every section as well as an overall pass mark, and the mock tests are written by us rather than by the JLPT organisers. A steady climb across attempts, and no section lagging behind the others, is what to aim for. The Strengths and weak spots chart on the JLPT Practice page shows which question types need the most work.
Why don't I see an explanation for each question?
Every plan with mock tests shows which answer was correct. Explanations of why it is correct are included in the Sensei plan.
Account & Security
Can I sign in with Google?
No. From the
login page you sign in with your e-mail address and password.
Do you support two-factor authentication?
Yes. From
Password & Security you can enable 2FA with an authenticator app. The form lists Google Authenticator; any app that can scan the QR code will work. After you scan the QR code and confirm a code, 2FA will be required on every sign-in.
I forgot my password.
I lost my authenticator app and can't get a 2FA code.
Use the
Login Trouble page and include your username. We will verify that the account is yours before turning 2FA off so that you can sign in and set it up again on your new device. The
Contact Us form is only available after you sign in.
How do I delete my account?
E-mail
privacy@yomit.ai from the address on your account or use the
Contact Us form. Deleting your account cancels any paid plan and permanently removes your notes, mock tests, and account details, so export any books you want to keep first. Our
Privacy Policy explains what we keep and for how long.
Privacy
What do you do with the text I search for or paste?
It is processed to give you the result and is not saved to your account. Pictures given to the Image Assistant are deleted as soon as the text has been read. Only the things you deliberately store — your notes and your mock test attempts — stay in your account.
Is my content used to train AI?
No. When you use an AI feature we send our AI provider only what is needed for that request (the word and sentence, the picture, the text to speak, or your notes and question), and under their API terms it is not used to train their models. We do not use your content to train models either, and nothing is sent to an AI provider unless the AI switch is on and you ask for an AI result. The
Privacy Policy has the details.
Plans & Payments
How much does it cost?
We have four plans: Kana ($0.00 USD), Kanji ($2.99 USD), Bunko ($7.99 USD), and Sensei ($12.99 USD) per month. The full comparison is on the
plan page.
What do I get on a paid plan?
Every paid plan unlocks the AI features: AI word explanations in the dictionary, in-sentence usage explanations in the Reading Assistant, AI vision in the Image Assistant, and the natural AI voice in Listening Practice, each with a monthly allowance of AI tokens that grows with the plan (150,000 on Kanji, 500,000 on Bunko, and 1,200,000 on Sensei).
The Bunko and Sensei plans add My Notes: a study notebook of books and pages where you can keep notes on any word, kanji, or grammar point and have the AI improve, summarise, or quiz you on them. They also include JLPT mock tests: 1 new test a month that you can retake as often as you like. Sensei also lets you export any book to PDF, Word, or Excel and shows an explanation for every mock test question. The dictionary, Learn packs, grammar, and kana tools stay free without an account.
What is an AI token?
Tokens are the pieces of text the AI reads and writes for you. A word explanation is roughly 1,100 tokens, summarising or quizzing a page of notes is a few thousand, reading a photo is about a thousand, and the natural AI voice counts one token for every character it speaks.
Your allowance renews on your billing date each month and unused tokens do not carry over. If you use it all before then, AI explanations and the AI note tools pause until your next billing date. The Image Assistant and Listening Practice switch back to their standard engines and tell you so, and everything that does not use AI keeps working. You can see how much you have used on the plan page.
Can I change my plan?
Yes. You can move between plans at any time from the
plan page.
Can I cancel?
Yes. Downgrade to Kana at any time from the
plan page. Your paid features stay active until the end of the period you have already paid for, and you will not be charged again. Your notes and mock tests are kept, so they are there if you come back.
What happens if my card payment fails?
We retry the card on file up to 3 times, 3 days apart. If every attempt fails your plan is downgraded to Kana. You can choose a paid plan again with a new card at any time from the
plan page.
Are payments secure?
Payments are processed by a PCI DSS Level 1 certified payment provider. Your card details are sent directly from your browser to the provider and never touch our servers; we only receive a token that we use to confirm charges and manage your subscription.
More detail is on our Security page.
Do you offer refunds?
No, we do not offer refunds. You can downgrade or cancel at any time and your paid features will remain active until the end of the period you have already paid for.
Is there an API?
Yes. A REST API gives you everything the website does from your own scripts and apps: the dictionary, kanji, grammar, and kana references, the reading, image, listening, and writing tools, My Notes, and your account, with the same plan limits as the website. The
API page documents every endpoint with examples in cURL, Go, PHP, Python, and Ruby, and shows your account token when you are signed in; keep it secret. All requests must be made over HTTPS, and a
429 Too Many Requests response means you should slow down.
Getting Help
Where can I find step-by-step instructions?
The
Help guide walks through every feature, from typing Japanese and searching the dictionary to My Notes, mock tests, plans, and the API, with the exact buttons and messages you will see on screen.
I found a wrong definition, a bug, or have a suggestion.
We would like to hear about it. Use the
Contact Us form and include the word, page, or steps involved. Dictionary entries come from the open projects listed on the
Resources page, so corrections to a definition are best sent to those projects too; we will tell you where.
