imiwa?

I’ve written 2 reviews post big update July 2026 before this and at first the dev added the auto paste feature but it was bugged but after a recent update they fixed it. So it’s clear they are paying attention to all of the recent bad reviews based on the big update. I can’t give it 5 stars again yet because of the overall performance downgrade of the new version but at least I can now use imiwa how I used to. Hopefully there’s minor performance improvements over time. Also I do appreciate some of the features like pitch accent that were added. I do think there’s like a strong politically motivated anti ai bias at play that goes past the functional downgrades leading to a lot of the strongly negative reviews, that said there is still a noticeable performance downgrade compared to the previous version which is why I’m still only giving 4 stars for now even though it seems like the dev is trying.

Update: I’ve continued to use the new version. It is quite good, and the new capabilities are helpful. I appreciate that it is completely free and that the developer is responsive to bug reports. I will continue to use this as my primary Japanese dictionary app, as I have for many years. Original: I have been using this app for 5 years as my go-to Japanese dictionary, and creating vocabulary lists of words I’m studying. Today, I open it and EVERYTHING has changed, without warning. I can’t find anything. I wasn’t sure it was even the same app. I thought my vocabulary lists were gone until thankfully I found them under the “learning” tab. I’m not against progress or change and I think over time, it will probably be an improvement. But to roll out a complete revamp without any sort of tutorial or explanation on an app that so many have depended on for language learning for so long is very disruptive. I think it would have been fine if there was an explanation that your old data is still in the app and instructions on where to find it.

Ive tried a lot of the translation apps, and none can touch this app. It provides an incredible amount of extremely useful information about each word. I like it for the following reasons: (1) has very accurate, nuanced and detailed definitions in multiple languages (2) provides info about what each kanji means (both as the whole word and broken down into individual kanji elements) (3) provides the grammatical structure of the word (e.g. it is an intransitive verb, い or な adjective, etc.) (4) provides all of the forms/conjugations of verbs and adjectives (e.g. present tense, past tense, ongoing, etc.). (5) provides kanji, hiragana, and romanji (6) has easy-to-access links to similar and related words (7) enter full sentences and it will break down each piece of vocab in the sentence (8) lets you know if the kana or kanji is more commonly used (9) has language cards you can practice that are organized according to both JLPT and school grade levels of difficulty (10) can bookmark and write notes (11) very nice “copy and paste” function (12) lots of kanji info: kanji brush strokes, info about radicals, lists other words using the same kanji radicals, etc. There are other apps with similar features (e.g. “Shitabe Jisho” and “Japanese”) but Imiwa is much cleaner and easy to read.