Read real things.
Learn every word you meet.
Import any article or story. Every word is highlighted by how well you know it. Tap one to learn it — Koto Read schedules the review so it sticks.
駅前の店
駅の前に新しい店ができた。毎朝、そこでコーヒーを買ってから会社に行く。
今日は雨が降るかもしれないので、傘を持っていく。
Finishing marks the 4 blue words on this page as Known.
Try it — tap a highlighted word, then Learn or Know it.
Reading is the point.
Most apps make you study before you can read. Koto Read starts with reading and builds the studying around what you meet.
Bring something to read
Paste a story or drop in a link to an article. Koto Read splits it into pages and links every word to its dictionary entry — conjugations, inflections and multi-word phrases included.
Read with your knowledge on the page
Blue is new. Amber is learning, fading as it sticks. Known words look like plain text. Tap a word to learn it; finish the page and the rest of the blue becomes known.
Review a few minutes a day
Words you picked while reading, plus the most frequent ones you don't know yet. FSRS spaced repetition decides when each one comes back.
Reviews exist to make reading possible.
Short daily sessions, phone-first, built around the fewest possible choices.
Two buttons. Again or Good. No agonising between Hard and Easy.
One setting. New words per day — 10 unless you change it.
Half from your reading. Up to half of each day's new words are ones you picked in the Reader. The most frequent words you don't know yet fill the rest.
Context on every card. The back shows the sentence where you met the word, kept even if you delete the text.
umbrella
noun傘を持っていく。
I'll take an umbrella.
Small things that keep you reading.
Kanji, broken down
Each kanji gets a one-word keyword and its parts, right next to the word — for understanding, never as extra cards to grind.
Phrases are words too
かもしれない, pomme de terre, de asemenea — learned and tracked as a unit, not as their pieces.
Furigana that steps aside
Readings show over new and freshly-learned words, then disappear once you've held a word for a week.
Kana Drill
Starting Japanese from zero? A timed matching game drills hiragana and katakana, and the kana you miss come up more.
Passkeys, no passwords
Sign in with Face ID, Touch ID or your device PIN. No password to forget, no email required.
On your phone
Install it to your home screen. Grade buttons sit in thumb reach; the Reader works just as well on a laptop.
Three languages, taught from English.
Each language is its own track, with its own reviews, texts and streak. More to come.
Japanese
日本語- Dictionary: JMdict, 200,000+ entries
- Furigana, Kanji Breakdown, Kana Drill
- Readings in kana — never romaji
French
Français- Dictionary: Wiktionary
- Every conjugation linked to its verb
- Elisions handled: l'abri, j'ai, qu'il
Romanian
Română- Dictionary: Wiktionary
- Cases and articles linked: casei → casă
- Clitics handled: într-o, s-a
Questions
Where do the texts come from?
From you. Paste anything you want to read, or give a link and Koto Read pulls out the article. Your texts stay private to your account.
I can't read Japanese yet. Can I start?
Yes. A new Japanese track asks whether you can read hiragana and katakana. If not, it starts you on the Kana Drill and suggests moving on once your kana chart is mostly green.
Why only Again and Good?
Because choosing between four buttons slows every review down and barely helps the scheduler. Koto Read uses FSRS, a modern spaced-repetition algorithm, which works well with two.
What does “Finish page” do?
If you read a page and didn't tap a blue word, you probably know it. Finish page marks every remaining new word on the page as Known, and you can undo it.
Do I need an email address?
No. Pick a username and sign in with a passkey. You can add passkeys for your other devices in Settings.
Does it work offline?
Not yet — Koto Read needs a connection, and says so clearly when you don't have one instead of losing your progress.
Your next article is already waiting.
Create an account in seconds — a username and a passkey.