Japanese Dictionary for Windows — Native Apps vs Web

You install Windows, you open Chrome, and the first thing you notice is that almost every Japanese-dictionary recommendation on Reddit assumes you're on a Mac. Shirabe Jisho is Mac-only. Nihongo is iPhone and iPad. Half the YouTube tutorials are someone hovering on a MacBook, and the rest are old enough that the screenshots use Yomichan, not Yomitan.

There is no single best answer. There are four jobs a Japanese dictionary can do on Windows, and a different tool wins for each one. The shape of this guide: name the four jobs, walk through the Japanese dictionary apps and web tools that fill each slot, and tell you when the other tool is the right answer.

Japanese dictionary apps for Windows: the 2026 landscape

Three categories of tool show up when you search for a Japanese dictionary on Windows in 2026:

• Browser popup extensions. Free, install in a minute, hover any Japanese word in Chrome or Edge for an instant lookup. immit, Yomitan, Mouse Dictionary, 10ten Reader, and the Migaku Reader extension all live here.

• Native desktop apps. Installed locally, offline by default, work outside the browser. Tagaini Jisho is the leading free option, immit ships a native Windows app alongside its Chrome extension, and EPWING readers like GoldenDict and Qolibri load commercial Japanese dictionaries you already own.

• Web-based reference dictionaries. Open a tab, type a word, get a thorough entry with example sentences and conjugation tables. Jisho.org, Weblio, and Eijiro on the Web (EOW) are the three you'll see linked most often on r/LearnJapanese.

The category that gets left out of most recommendations is what the Japanese-learning community usually calls "save and remember": tools that don't just look up a word but actually hold onto it for review later. immit and Migaku are the two integrated options on Windows; everyone else asks you to pair a dictionary with Anki and bridge them with AnkiConnect. We'll get to that in the fourth section.

The four jobs to decide between:

1. In-browser hover lookup. You're reading a Japanese article, novel chapter, or news site in Chrome or Edge. You want to hover a word and see the reading, definition, and example sentence without leaving the page.

2. Standalone reference lookup. You're writing a message, doing homework, or trying to figure out a word you heard. You want to type or paste a word into an app and get a thorough answer with meanings, part-of-speech, and kanji information.

3. Monolingual / J-J reference. You've crossed past the JLPT N3 line where English glosses stop being enough, and you want a real Japanese-Japanese dictionary so you can see how natives explain the word.

4. Save and remember. You want the word you just looked up to come back tomorrow, next week, and next month so it actually sticks.

immit is built to cover jobs 1 and 4 in one tool, with monolingual J-J built in for job 3. For job 2, Jisho.org and the desktop reference apps are still the best answers and I'll say so below.

In-browser hover lookup: the popup dictionary slot

This is the slot most people mean when they say "Japanese dictionary for Windows." You hover, a popup appears, you keep reading.

immit (Chrome extension + native Windows app)

immit is a popup Japanese dictionary with built-in spaced repetition flashcards. The install is the Chrome extension AND the native Windows desktop app together, not one or the other. The extension handles hover lookup inside Chrome. The desktop app handles standalone review and works on non-browser content.

What you get from hover: instant lookup (about 0.1 seconds), the reading on the headword in hiragana, part-of-speech, the English meaning, an example sentence, and a click-to-hear pronunciation so you can hear how the word is actually pronounced. The dictionary covers JP-EN, EN-JP, EN-EN, and JP-JP (monolingual) by default, with no manual dictionary import step. You save a word with one click, and the 8-stage SRS schedules the review for you.

Free tier covers lookup, save, and SRS review with no account required and full offline support, which makes it usable for offline study on a plane or in a café without Wi-Fi. Pro is $9 per month or $108 per year, or a $299 one-time purchase. Pro adds multi-device sync across machines, cloud backup of your flashcards, dark mode, and priority support.

Install immit free

Yomitan (Chrome, Edge, Firefox)

Yomitan is the open-source successor to Yomichan and the default recommendation in the immersion community. It works on Windows in any modern browser. You hover, you get a popup with the reading, pitch accent, and definitions from whichever dictionaries you've installed, with verbs automatically deinflected back to their dictionary form.

Yomitan's strength is depth and customization. You can install JMdict, NHK pitch accent, monolingual dictionaries like 大辞林 or 新明解 via EPWING-converted format, frequency lists, JLPT level tags, and kanji dictionaries. The popup will surface everything you've enabled. AnkiConnect bridges Yomitan to Anki for one-click card creation.

What you trade for the depth: setup time. Yomitan does not ship with dictionaries; you download them separately, install them in order, and configure AnkiConnect if you want SRS. The widely cited setup tutorials on TheMoeWay take roughly 30 minutes if you read every step. Chrome's Manifest V3 transition in 2024-2025 also disrupted some Yomitan installs; current builds work, but the search results from that era are still in the way.

Yomitan is the right answer if you want maximum dictionary depth in your browser, you already use Anki, and the tinkering is part of what you enjoy about the hobby.

Mouse Dictionary (Chrome, Firefox)

Mouse Dictionary is a free, open-source popup dictionary built by a Japanese developer. It's the standard recommendation on Qiita and Zenn when Japanese readers ask about a popup for English. It also works in the other direction for English-speakers reading Japanese, though the default English-to-Japanese dictionary (ejdict-hand) is light and most users swap in something stronger.

Strengths: very fast, very small, free, in-page PDF lookup works, no account, no telemetry. Weakness for our use case: no save list, no SRS, no review queue. Once the popup closes, the word is gone unless you copy it somewhere yourself.

Mouse Dictionary is the right answer if you want the lightest possible popup, you don't want a save layer, and you're willing to bring your own dictionary file.

10ten Reader (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari)

10ten Reader is the active fork of Rikaichamp, which was itself the fork of Rikaikun. It's lighter than Yomitan, ships with a sensible default dictionary, and adds nice extras like a kanji-component breakdown panel, per-character stroke order, and JLPT level tags on common entries. ChatGPT and Perplexity often name it as the "drop-in alternative to Yomitan" when you ask for one.

What it doesn't include: SRS. Like Yomitan, it pushes the retention problem to Anki if you want one.

10ten Reader is the right answer if you want a lighter, faster popup than Yomitan, you don't need EPWING-grade dictionary depth, and you're using a non-Chrome browser like Firefox or Safari.

Migaku Reader (browser extension component)

Migaku is a paid integrated learning platform. The reader is one component; it bundles a popup dictionary, an SRS, a courses surface (Migaku Academy I is their flagship structured course), and streaming-platform subtitle overlays for Netflix and YouTube.

Verified pricing as of May 2026: Standard at $9 per month or $87 per year, Early Access at $14 per month or $135 per year, Lifetime at $399 (often discounted to $199). The 10-day money-back window is the closest thing to a free trial; there is no permanent free tier. Chrome only on the browser side, no Firefox.

Migaku Academy I, their structured N5-to-N3 course, is the real reason most paying users say the subscription is worth it. immit does not have a structured course and is not trying to build one. If a curriculum is what you want, Migaku is the right answer for that.

Standalone reference lookup: when you're not in a browser

This is the second job. You're not reading a page, you're trying to look up a word.

Tagaini Jisho (Windows, Mac, Linux desktop)

Tagaini Jisho is a free, open-source Japanese dictionary and kanji lookup tool that doubles as a study assistant. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, all installed locally, no account, no internet required after install. It ships with the full JMdict (more than 140,000 entries covering Japanese words, verbs, and common phrases) and KANJIDIC2 (more than 12,000 kanji entries with detailed kanji information). The project is still maintained; the latest release ships under copyright dated through 2026.

What's good about it: the dictionary is deep, the radical and component-based kanji lookup is excellent, kanji entries include stroke order animations and JLPT level metadata, and the study mode lets you quickly search for entries and mark the ones you want to study, with custom tags and personal notes attached to each entry. There's a built-in flashcard layer that uses those tagged entries as the review pool.

Where it shows its age: the UI is from a different era of desktop software design, there's no in-browser hover (it's a separate window you switch to, not a popup), and the built-in flashcard scheduler is simpler than what a modern SRS like FSRS or immit's 8-stage scheduler produces.

Tagaini Jisho is the right answer if you want a fully free, fully offline native desktop dictionary on Windows with kanji stroke order animations and a tagging system, you don't mind switching to a separate window to look things up, and you're happy with a simpler review layer.

immit desktop app

The same install that gives you the Chrome extension ships a native Windows desktop app. It's the surface for standalone review and for words you saved from anywhere. If you've been saving from Chrome all morning, your review queue is waiting in the desktop app at lunch, offline.

Where this matters relative to Tagaini: immit is one tool across browser and desktop with a shared word list and a single review queue; Tagaini is one tool on the desktop side only. If you only ever look words up in a separate window, Tagaini will do that for free. If your reading happens in a browser and you want the saves to flow into review without a second tool, immit is the answer.

Monolingual / J-J reference: when you've outgrown the English glosses

There's a moment, usually somewhere around N3, where English glosses start losing the nuance. You look up 寂しい and get "lonely, sad," and you know that doesn't quite capture it. The fix is a real Japanese-Japanese dictionary that explains the word in Japanese.

Weblio (web)

Weblio is a free online Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary that also serves as a highly reliable Japanese-Japanese dictionary suitable for advanced users. It aggregates entries from 三省堂 大辞林, 実用日本語表現辞典, EDR日中対訳辞書, and several specialized dictionaries, with detailed definitions, example usage, and sample sentences that make it useful for both Japanese learners and native speakers.

Weblio is the right answer if you want native-grade J-J definitions, you're fine doing the lookup in a separate browser tab, and you read enough Japanese that wading through Japanese-only definitions is no longer a wall.

Jisho.org (web)

Jisho.org is the most popular English-Japanese online dictionary. It's a powerful online dictionary that lets you look up words, kanji, and example sentences, with features like search using English, romaji, or Japanese, plus a drawing panel for kanji you can't type. The radical and stroke-based kanji lookup is the best in the category, the handwriting panel works on Windows with a trackpad or mouse, and the sentence search pulls from Tatoeba.

Jisho is the right answer if you want a single tab open at all times for "let me check this word against a reference," and you don't need it to remember anything for you.

Eijiro on the Web (EOW, by ALC)

EOW is provided by ALC and is a resource for finding complex idioms, technical terms, and natural conversational phrasing that JMdict-based dictionaries (including Jisho.org) sometimes miss. If you're translating a contract or trying to figure out the right register for a business email, EOW is where you'll end up.

GoldenDict and Qolibri (Windows desktop EPWING readers)

GoldenDict and Qolibri are desktop dictionary programs that support comprehensive native Japanese EPWING databases on Windows. If you own commercial Japanese dictionaries in EPWING format (大辞林, 広辞苑, the various 漢和辞典), these open-source readers turn a stack of CD-ROM-era dictionary files into a usable lookup surface with cross-dictionary search.

GoldenDict + EPWING is the right answer if you already own a serious dictionary collection or you're planning to buy one, and you want desktop-native, instant, offline access to monolingual depth Yomitan dictionaries don't fully match.

immit's built-in J-J

immit's default dictionary includes JP-JP (monolingual) entries alongside JP-EN. This is intentionally not as deep as a fully-loaded Yomitan with 大辞林 and 新明解 stacked on top, and it's not trying to be. The point is that you get a reasonable monolingual gloss in the same popup, without a second window or a manual import step. If you want the deepest J-J available on Windows, Yomitan with EPWING-converted dictionaries or GoldenDict with EPWING is still the answer.

Save and remember: when lookup isn't enough

This is the job nobody mentions when they search "japanese dictionary for windows," and it's the one that decides whether the words you looked up today are still in your head next month.

An effective reading workflow for intermediate to advanced Japanese learners usually includes a tool that allows for instant lookup of unfamiliar words while reading, because the alternative (stopping, switching to a dictionary tab, typing the word, switching back) is the friction that ends most immersion sessions early. The lookup half is what most popup dictionaries solve. The remember half is where the workflow falls apart.

Spaced repetition is a learning technique that schedules reviews at increasing intervals to enhance memory retention over time. Research on the spacing effect, going back to Ebbinghaus's forgetting-curve work, shows that information is better recalled when it's studied over spaced intervals than when it's studied in a single session. Integrating spaced repetition into the reading workflow lets you review words at intervals tuned to your memory strength, which significantly improves long-term retention of Japanese vocabulary compared to traditional study methods. The Japanese language has a complex writing system that combines kanji, hiragana, and katakana, which makes vocabulary acquisition a unique challenge: a word you "know" in kana you might not recognize in kanji, and vice versa. Effective vocabulary retention usually involves a tool that integrates flashcards, spaced repetition, and contextual learning so that the word, its reading, and the context it appeared in all stay linked.

The honest landscape on Windows: Yomitan + AnkiConnect + Anki is the community-default stack for save and remember, and it works. The trade-off is the setup tax (about 30 minutes the first time) and the tax of running three tools that don't quite share a language. Migaku integrates save and SRS into the reader but the SRS scheduler has been a sustained complaint thread on r/LearnJapanese (cards failing forward to 20-30-card-deep penalties versus Anki's 5).

immit's wedge here is built-in SRS with no AnkiConnect, no deck config, and no separate Anki install. You hover, you save, the 8-stage SRS schedules the review, and the next morning the words come back. The review surfaces are a flip mode (two-button: easy or difficult) and a type-in mode (you type the answer, immit checks it). Tagaini Jisho has a flashcard layer on the desktop side; for in-browser save-and-remember as one continuous loop, immit is the option I'd pick first.

For a longer walk through this decision, the Anki burnout post covers the user-journey arc that immit was built around.

How to pick

A working chooser, by use case:

• You want one tool that handles in-browser reading, saves, and reviews without configuration. Try immit free. Chrome extension + Windows desktop app, no account.

• You want the deepest possible in-browser dictionary and you already use Anki. Yomitan + your preferred dictionary stack + AnkiConnect.

• You want a free standalone desktop dictionary with offline access and don't need browser hover. Tagaini Jisho.

• You want a free, lightweight browser popup with no save layer. Mouse Dictionary or 10ten Reader.

• You want a structured course alongside the immersion tools. Migaku, mostly for Academy I.

• You want native-grade J-J reference. Weblio in a tab, EOW for idioms and business language, EPWING dictionaries via GoldenDict or Qolibri if you own them.

• You want a reliable reference dictionary for the times you're not reading in a browser. Jisho.org open in a tab.

Most working setups end up being two of these, not one. The question is which two. immit is built to be one of them and ideally the one you don't have to think about: hover, save, review, repeat.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Japanese dictionary for Windows in 2026?

There isn't one universal best, because the question covers four different jobs (in-browser hover, standalone reference, monolingual J-J, save and remember). For most intermediate learners who read Japanese in a browser and want the words to stick, immit is the option I'd start with because it covers hover + save + SRS in one tool. For maximum in-browser dictionary depth, Yomitan with EPWING dictionaries is the deeper answer at the cost of about 30 minutes of setup. For free standalone desktop reference, Tagaini Jisho is the best maintained native Windows option.

Does Yomitan work on Windows?

Yes. Yomitan is a browser extension and works on Windows in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Installing dictionaries and AnkiConnect is a separate manual step after the extension install. The 2024-2025 Manifest V3 transition disrupted some installs, but current builds are stable.

Is there a free offline Japanese dictionary for Windows?

Tagaini Jisho is the most complete free offline native Windows dictionary, with the full JMdict and KANJIDIC2 built in. immit's free tier also includes offline lookup and offline SRS review on Windows without an account. For browser-side offline lookup, Yomitan and Mouse Dictionary both work offline once their dictionaries are loaded.

What is Tagaini Jisho and is it still maintained?

Tagaini Jisho is a free, open-source native desktop Japanese dictionary and study assistant for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's actively maintained as of 2026, ships under GPL v3, and includes more than 140,000 vocabulary entries (JMdict) and more than 12,000 kanji entries (KANJIDIC2) with stroke order animations, JLPT level tags, and a tagging system for entries you want to study.

What is the best Japanese popup dictionary for Windows 10 / 11?

For most intermediate immersion learners, immit (Chrome extension + Windows desktop app) is the option I'd try first because it bundles hover lookup, one-click save, and an 8-stage SRS in one tool with no setup. Yomitan is the deeper alternative if you want EPWING-grade dictionary depth and you already use Anki. 10ten Reader is the lighter alternative if you want a faster popup without configuration.

Can I use a Japanese dictionary in PDFs on Windows?

The in-browser popups (Yomitan, immit, 10ten Reader) only work on text rendered in HTML, not inside browser PDF viewers. Mouse Dictionary is the popup that works on PDFs in-browser. For standalone PDF reading, you can use Tagaini Jisho or Jisho.org alongside a PDF reader and switch windows for lookups.

Is Mouse Dictionary still maintained in 2026?

Mouse Dictionary is open source and still receiving occasional updates as of 2026. Active development has slowed compared to Yomitan's pace, but the extension works on current Chrome and Firefox builds on Windows.

Which Windows Japanese dictionary has built-in flashcards or SRS?

immit (browser hover + 8-stage SRS in one tool, no account, free tier), Migaku (integrated reader + SRS, paid subscription starting at $9 per month standard or $14 per month early access yearly billed), and Tagaini Jisho (desktop-only, free, simpler scheduler than modern SRS algorithms) are the three with built-in flashcard layers. Yomitan, Mouse Dictionary, 10ten Reader, Jisho.org, Weblio, EOW, GoldenDict, and Qolibri do not include SRS and rely on Anki or a separate review tool.

What about iOS, iPhone, iPad, or macOS users?

immit ships a native macOS desktop app alongside the Windows and Linux builds and the Chrome extension, so Mac users get the same workflow. On iPhone and iPad, immit is still in the considering stage and doesn't have a shipped app yet. The most-recommended iOS-native option is Nihongo, which focuses on authentic Japanese content and includes auto-creation of flashcards based on looked-up words and a kanji handwriting keyboard for entries you can't type. Shirabe Jisho is the other free reference dictionary on iOS. On macOS, Mac users frequently pair Yomitan or immit's extension in the browser with a separate reference app like Shirabe Jisho or Tagaini Jisho. A dedicated guide for iPad users is in the works.

What I'd actually do

If you're new to immersion reading on Windows and you want one thing to start with, I'd install immit free. Both the Chrome extension and the desktop app are free, there's no account, and the SRS is set up before you open it. Read a Japanese article, hover the first word you don't know, save it. By tomorrow you'll know whether the loop fits the way you want to read.

If you decide later that you want a deeper dictionary stack in the browser, you can layer Yomitan on top. If you want a structured course alongside immersion, you can add Migaku. If you want a free standalone desktop reference, Tagaini Jisho is one install away. Most intermediate setups end up being two tools that share the work; the question is which two, and which one is doing the part you don't want to think about.