If you read Japanese on an iPad, you already know the problem. The browser extensions everyone recommends on your laptop, Yomitan and the rest, do not run on iPadOS. So the question "what's the best Japanese dictionary for iPad" has a different answer than it does on a Mac, and most of the app lists you find never explain why. I read on an iPad most evenings, usually manga and articles, so this is the roundup I wish I'd had: the apps that actually fit the device, what each one is good at, and where the gaps still are. Most of this applies to iPhone too, since the same apps run on both.
Quick answer first. For most intermediate learners, Nihongo and Japanese (by Renzo Inc.) are the strongest all-in-one iPad dictionaries, with Takoboto and Shirabe Jisho as the best free, offline picks. If your reading happens in Safari, 10ten Reader's companion app is the closest thing to popup lookup on iPad. The rest of this post is how to choose between them.
One thing worth saying up front: intermediate to advanced learners often prefer vocabulary they pick up from real content during their studies, the shows and books they are actually reading, rather than from a pre-made list. That preference shapes which dictionary is right for you, because the best tool is the one that makes it easy to look up new words in the moment and turn them into review.
A good dictionary app on iPad does more than hand you English translations. The features that separate a study tool from a lookup box are: a real Japanese-English dictionary with example sentences that show grammar patterns in context, kanji information (readings, radicals, stroke counts, and often stroke order animations), and full offline access so your dictionary data lives on the device and does not need an internet connection. A common-word marker helps too, distinguishing everyday vocabulary from obscure words so you know what is actually worth learning.
Two features matter more on a touch screen than they do anywhere else. Handwriting recognition lets you draw a kanji you cannot type, and photo lookup (OCR) lets you point the camera at printed text. Between them they solve the single most annoying part of studying Japanese on a tablet, which is getting an unknown character into the search box in the first place. And if you want to genuinely learn Japanese rather than just decode a page, look for built-in flash cards, because turning lookups into spaced review is what moves a word from "I saw it once" into your long-term reading ability.
Nihongo, built by Chris Vasselli, is the app most intermediate-plus learners land on. It ships with over 200,000 words and around 205,000 example sentences, roughly 6,000 kanji entries with animated stroke order, and search by radicals and stroke counts. It generates flash cards from the words and kanji you look up, uses a spaced repetition system to schedule them, and tracks which words you already know so it stops reviewing them. It also has photo lookup through Google Cloud Vision, kanji handwriting input for characters you cannot type, and a Safari extension that can add furigana to Japanese text on a web page. The free version covers lookups; review and some power features sit behind the paid tier.
Japanese (by Renzo Inc.) is the other heavyweight, with about 180,000 dictionary entries and 58,000 example sentences, plus built-in flash cards and conjugation tables. It is a cleaner fit for learners who want a reference that is deep but not overwhelming.
Midori is the polished paid option, and Jisho and Midori are both highly regarded among people studying Japanese on iPad. Midori is fully offline, has strong kanji information with stroke order and radical search, and a design that has aged well. If you want one dictionary you pay for once and trust, this is the common recommendation. Prices and features change, so I highly recommend checking each app's App Store listing before you buy.
Printed text, a screenshot, or a manga panel is not selectable, so you need optical character recognition. Yomiwa is the app built around this: it can read kanji from photos and the live camera, and create custom flash cards from what it finds. Nihongo's Google Cloud Vision photo lookup covers the same need inside a fuller dictionary. Handwriting recognition is the companion feature: when a kanji is too complex to identify by radicals, drawing it is faster than counting strokes. Pair either with iPadOS split-screen multitasking, dictionary on one side and what you are reading on the other, and the whole study loop gets noticeably faster.
If you do not want to pay, three apps cover the basics well and all work without an internet connection.
Takoboto is a free JMdict-based Japanese-English dictionary that works offline, supports search by English, romaji (Japanese written in the Latin alphabet), or Japanese, and has simple word lists you can export. Shirabe Jisho is another free, offline favorite with a clean interface and radical search. imiwa? is the classic free dictionary that has been on iOS for years; it is dense but reliable, with example sentences and kanji breakdowns. There is also a Jisho app that mirrors the jisho.org experience, letting you search using English, romaji, or Japanese, which is handy if that website is already your muscle memory.
These are excellent English-Japanese and Japanese-English references, but none of them has a strong built-in review system. They are dictionaries, not study loops. That is the trade-off: you look a word up, you see the word's meaning and a couple of example sentences, and remembering it is on you.
The feature laptop users miss most on iPad is hover-to-look-up, tapping a word in the page and getting the definition without leaving it. Yomitan does not exist on iPadOS, so the honest answer is that no iPad app matches a desktop popup dictionary exactly. The nearest option is 10ten Reader, which ships a companion app that brings tap-lookup to Safari on iOS and iPadOS. Nihongo's Safari extension, which can add furigana to Japanese text, is a lighter complement for reading rather than mining.
If your reading is book-length rather than web pages, Manabi Reader is worth a serious look. It is a native iOS, iPadOS, and macOS reading app with a built-in dictionary and flash cards, designed around reading first and looking up words in place. For learners who live inside the Apple ecosystem and want reading and lookup in one native app, Manabi is a genuinely good choice, and I would rather concede that plainly than pretend otherwise. There is no Android version, so it is an Apple-only pick.
I should be straight about this, because it is a post about iPad. immit does not have a native iPad app. immit is a Chrome extension (with an optional desktop app for Mac, Windows, and Linux), and Chrome on iOS cannot run extensions, so there is no immit lookup on an iPad today. What does work on an iPad is review: with a free account, you can review your saved words in the web app in any iPad browser. I am not going to rank our own tool first on a device it does not run on.
What immit is built to do, on the machines where it does run, is close the gap the free dictionaries above leave open: you hover a word, conjugated or not, see the definition right there, save it in one click together with the sentence it came from, and the built-in FSRS scheduler sets the review. The lookup and the review live in the same tool, so the new words you find while reading do not get lost on the way to a separate flash card app. There is also a Pocket Dictionary, a pinned sidebar window you can keep open while you read to search or clear a few cards without switching tabs. Everything is free, with no account needed and full offline support; a free account adds sync across devices and review on your phone or iPad through the web app.
For now, the realistic pattern is a native dictionary on the iPad for on-the-go reading and immit on your computer for the main reading-and-review loop. Review already works in an iPad browser through the web app once you have an account, so the words you save on your laptop can be reviewed on the iPad. If you also read on a laptop, you can add immit to Chrome today, free and with no account.
Whichever dictionary you pick, the apps that stick are the ones that turn lookups into review. Nihongo and Japanese do this natively with flash cards and spaced repetition, which adjusts how often you see a card based on how well you remember it and cuts down on review overload. If you use one of the free dictionaries instead, learners commonly pair it with a dedicated SRS app like Anki for long-term vocabulary review. The point either way is the same: a dictionary shows you a word's meaning once, but only spaced review builds the reading ability to recognize it next time without looking. Example sentences help here more than isolated definitions, because seeing a word inside real grammar patterns, ideally checked by native speakers, is how it sticks.
For most intermediate learners, Nihongo is the best all-in-one iPad dictionary, thanks to its large word and example-sentence database, kanji stroke order, photo lookup, and built-in spaced repetition. Japanese by Renzo Inc. is a close second, and Takoboto or Shirabe Jisho are the best free, offline picks. There is no single winner; the right one depends on whether you want built-in review or just a fast reference.
Yes. Takoboto, Shirabe Jisho, and imiwa? are all free and work fully offline, so you can look up Japanese words on a plane or with no internet connection. They are strong dictionaries but have limited or no built-in flash card review.
No. Yomitan is a browser extension for desktop Chrome and Firefox, and iPadOS browsers do not support it. The closest option on iPad is 10ten Reader's companion app, which brings tap-lookup to Safari.
Partly. iPad Safari does not support desktop-style popup dictionaries, but 10ten Reader adds tap-to-look-up in Safari, and Nihongo's Safari extension can add furigana to Japanese text on a page. Neither is identical to a desktop popup, but they are the closest tap-based equivalents.
For lookup, no. immit is a Chrome extension (plus an optional desktop app for Mac, Windows, and Linux), and Chrome on iOS cannot run extensions, so there is no immit lookup on iPad today. For review, yes: with a free account you can review the words you saved on your computer in the web app in any iPad browser. For reading on the go, a native iPad dictionary covers it.
Both are free and offline. Takoboto has more export and word-list options and search by English, romaji, or Japanese; Shirabe Jisho has a slightly cleaner interface and good radical search. Try both, since neither costs anything, and keep the one whose layout you prefer.
Yes. Nihongo and Japanese by Renzo both generate flash cards from your lookups and schedule them with a spaced repetition system. If you prefer a free dictionary, you can pair it with a separate SRS app instead, though that means managing two tools rather than one.
