J-crosswords

This is one of my favorite apps for learning Japanese (and believe me, I’ve tried a lot or them)! There’s a ton of value with the free version, but the paid version is like $3 and you get puzzles with vocab, not only sorted by level (N5, N4, etc), but also by textbook (and further sorted by chapter!) The crossword format is a novel concept and makes it fun to do vocabulary drills. If you can’t tell already, I highly recommend this app for anyone learning Japanese, and especially for those learning via the popular textbooks! 👏

I haven’t played much, but this app deserves more praise. I’ve been studying J4BP and have been looking for a fun way to study. This easily fills that gap. I played through the free J4BP1 crosswords and checked out the kanji crosswords as well. The crosswords followed the textbook pretty well, and based on the vocabulary list, it continues to. The app allows keyboard input, so you can go through the crosswords fast and without any hints. The UI is great both in and out of crosswords and very cute as well. The kanji crosswords are interesting and different enough to feel like a separate challenge, though it does lack N5 kanji puzzles. Overall, it’s clear a lot of time and effort went into making it a genuinely good study resource. There are only two main problems: The app requires you to pay either per module or for all puzzles to continue. This is understandable considering the obvious effort and that there are no ads, but wish it was a bit more upfront in the App Store as it’s nearly useless without paying. There is no option to create a crossword of previously studied vocabulary. The crosswords are broken up into individual lessons and vocabulary is rarely used outside that lesson. There is no incentive to go back into completed ones as the crossword does not change. Essentially, the app is only good as supplementary material when initially learning and not for reviewing. The app keeps track of vocabulary learned, so it seems like it could potentially add an option for creating a randomized puzzle based on previous vocabulary. I think this is an important feature and should be considered for future updates. Despite these problems, I think this app is a great avenue for additional studying. Beginners should consider using this app to help them on their journey and spice things up a little when flash cards get boring.

This goes perfectly with my coursework since it builds the crosswords against chapters from the textbook I'm using. Looks like all the main textbooks are there. It's a lot more fun than what I was doing before I found this, that's for sure. Although I still use my textbook to memorize the material initially, these make it easy for me to stay engaged with the material over longer periods of time.