Introducing YomiBito — an intelligent e-reader built specifically for Japanese learners

[Yomibito]

Hi everyone!

I have used natively from time to time to find good book suggestions. So I thought this forum would be a great place to share this project I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s called YomiBito, a Japanese e-reader designed to make reading native material less intimidating/difficult while helping you to develop strong reading skills. It’s currently in beta, so I’d really appreciate anyone willing to give it a try and share their feedback!

Some of the features include:

• EPUB, TXT, PDF, DOCX and web novel (syosetu and kakuyomu) support (with manga support coming soon!).
• Automatically generated, per chapter - vocabulary and grammar decks filtered against your existing knowledge, so you only study what you need.
• Built-in FSRS flashcards
• AI-powered popup dictionary with one-click flashcard creation
• Full-sentence DeepL translations
• Adaptive furigana based on what you already know
• Dynamic word and kanji confidence tracking that adapts to your progress and personalizes your reading experience
• Built-in text-to-speech
• And a bonus Subtitle generator for videos

If you’re interested in the story behind the project, I recently wrote a short blog post about why I decided to build YomiBito:

Why I Built YomiBito

I’m also always looking for feedback, feature ideas, or just to chat with other Japanese learners. If you’d like to join the community, you’re more than welcome to stop by our Discord!

Yomibito Discord

I’d love to hear what you think! If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas for features you’d find useful while reading Japanese, please let me know.

Thanks for reading!

[jhkjsdsf]

Seems like an amazing tool, but I have a question.

What’s the paid version for? In the FAQ there’s mention of no storing credit card info, and there’s “Start for free” everywhere on the page, but it’s unclear if this is going to be fully free or if there’s going to be a paywall for something.

[Yomibito]

Hey!
Thanks so much for trying it out! And I am happy to hear you like it so far.

So I prefer to look at things from a “am I adding a lot of value to people” perspective. Thats why right now Yomibito is in beta (and completely free) whilst I continue to update/refine and enhance its features. Especially using the feedback from the beta users. But I also like to be upfront so I have a banner as soon as you log in advising that I will likely charge a subscription when it does launch (price is nowhere near decided and would be decided with feedback from users again). The FAQ mentioning the credit card info can be ignored as it currently isn’t relevant (will remove to avoid any confusion).

[Vie]

@Yomibito

• AI-powered popup dictionary with one-click flashcard creation

Why would you need AI in a popup dictionary?

[Yomibito]

Glad you asked! Because I know seeing AI makes people cringe and feel exasperated nowadays I even considered taking off the AI part. But in this case it is useful for 2 very specific things:

1. Word “Senses” are separated, not stacked. Most dictionaries dump every meaning of a word into one run-on list, leaving you to scroll through and decide which one fits. The popup splits an entry into distinct senses grouped by part of speech, then highlights the sense that actually applies in the context of the sentence you’re reading.
2. Heteronyms also get the same treatment and are resolved in context. 辛い is either からい (“spicy”) or つらい (“painful”) — same kanji, different reading, different word. This affects the furigana as well.

[Megumin]

This is very similar to Migaku. I appreciate the pre-processing of the books, and being presented with the vocabulary and grammar before diving into the chapter, vs being confronted with it and later having to add the card.

Nitpicks:

• Dark mode through the application, not only during reading.

• Offline support with local storage.

• The kanji drawing starting on all characters at the same time is distracting and unintuitive. You can’t pay attention to all three drawings at the same time.
  

  

• Text gets hidden.

  

• Keyboard shortcuts where missing, like going up and down the pages of the book.

• Some novels have images with text, a way to have OCR processing on those would be nice.

• Needs furigana, and maybe audio option during cards:
  

  

All in all, I’m not sure I’d end up using it to be completely blunt. Would depend on price and that it would be a more comfortable way to read than what I currently use.

On the price bit, I wouldn’t get too deep into the ecosystem without knowing what it’s going to be able to keep using it, and I’m not fond of being locked into it (like not being able to export my data, such as decks)

[jhkjsdsf]

That’s my worry as well, I need to know the price before really diving in. I would make the switch from Migaku if you make it compatible with Mokuro and it’s cheaper. Also a way to have a one-time payment would really make me consider it against Migaku, again depending on the price, because I’m considering getting lifetime for Migaku at the end of the year.

[Yomibito]

@Megumin

Migaku

I personally think Yomibito has quite a few more perks than Migaku. I am clearly biased though.

Re Nitpicks:

• Dark mode - Agreed!, it’s definitely in the queue to be done.
• Kanji drawing - You can go in the settings and change it to Sequential. I believe it currently defaults to simultaneous, I will poll some other beta users and see which they prefer as the default. Though I think you have convinced me.
• Hidden Text - do you mean when the header bar is open? If yes, the header bar with settings/bookmarks/etc only stays open temporarily while your using it. Let me know if I misunderstood you.
• Keyboard shortcuts - True! I’m a mouse user so didn’t have this in my mind. However, I just checked and scrolling up and down seems to work from my keyboard. Regardless I need to look this over (for the other hotkeys as well), It shouldn’t be difficult to implement. Thanks!
• OCR Images - I actually thought of this as well and have it penned down to work on. I thought of it whilst working on the update to support Manga.
• Flashcard - You can currently play the audio of the example sentence. Maybe I do need to make the UI a bit more clear there. Furigana is an oversight tho! I will have that fixed within this week.

I definitely understand where you’re coming from regarding the price. To be a bit more clear my plan is to get feedback from all our beta users and get an idea of what pricing they think is fair. That’s one of the biggest factors I’ll use when deciding on pricing. So until I do that I wouldn’t be able to tell you more right now. One thing I can say now is that everyone who joins the beta will receive a discounted price when YomiBito officially launches. So if you’ve already signed up, please look out for when I send out that survey.

Deck Export

The reason YomiBito doesn’t currently support exporting decks is because it works a bit differently than other apps. It doesn’t just track a list of words you have marked as known like most apps. it continuously tracks your familiarity with every word. Flashcard reviews update that confidence, but so does your reading behavior for example, looking up a word in the popup dictionary or repeatedly encountering it while reading. That data is what allows the reader to adapt over time. If you were to export only the flashcards and continue reviewing elsewhere, YomiBito would lose a significant part of that feedback loop. That being said I understand the concern around being locked-in, so exporting your deck is definitely something I’m considering.

If I could ask you a few more questions:-
What do you currently use for your reading?
You mentioned that it would come down to whether YomiBito is a more comfortable reading experience than what you currently use. What specifically would make it feel more comfortable for you? (besides what you mentioned above).

Thanks so much for testing it out and for all your feedback so far!!

[Megumin]

@Yomibito

• Hidden Text - do you mean when the header bar is open? If yes, the header bar with settings/bookmarks/etc only stays open temporarily while your using it. Let me know if I misunderstood you.

That bar is appearing every time I move the mouse over, so it’s impossible to select the text behind the bar.

@Yomibito

• Keyboard shortcuts - True! I’m a mouse user so didn’t have this in my mind. However, I just checked and scrolling up and down seems to work from my keyboard. Regardless I need to look this over (for the other hotkeys as well), It shouldn’t be difficult to implement. Thanks!

This is some beef I had with Migaku too and I shared feedback with them. There’s also touch input to have in mind, as lot of people access from tablets and similar devices. If there’s a touch screen, touching the sides of a page should move next/prev IMHO.

@Yomibito

You mentioned that it would come down to whether YomiBito is a more comfortable reading experience than what you currently use. What specifically would make it feel more comfortable for you? (besides what you mentioned above).

Offline support (even if limited, and later sync) for starters is a must. I can adapt with the device depending on what I’m reading. There’s no point in having stuff to read locked behind an internet connection and me being stuck in an Airplane for 12h+ or roaming, or in the mountains or whatever.

Right now if I want to go deep learning with difficult materials I use Ttsu reader with the Migaku extension. Migaku is at fault as well of not supporting offline though, but I can still access my books without internet, because they are stored locally with the Ttsu reader, so I’m not locked out of my library fully.

Also using Ttsu reader, I can use vertical text, which feels a bit more natural when reading Japanese. I know this is weird, but it’s probably something I just got used to.

Migaku has processing on real time, that means a slower device suffers , thus what I mentioned I enjoyed the pre-processing done by Yomibito.

I could see myself feeding things to Yomibito to get my deck and grammar before diving into a book, and then using whatever like Ttsu or directly one of my e-ink devices, but at that point it would be hard to justify using the service depending on the price, as I wouldn’t be using the full suite.

@Yomibito

• Kanji drawing - You can go in the settings and change it to Sequential. I believe it currently defaults to simultaneous, I will poll some other beta users and see which they prefer as the default. Though I think you have convinced me.

You could make it that the drawing animation is done on mouse hover, as an option maybe. I think I’d enjoy that one the best, I don’t really need certain Kanji drawing stroke orders. And I might not want to go through the whole animation for a character in the middle/end.

[Snappie]

After typing my response I feel like I’ve been a bit mean, but I do want to give you my honest opinion so I decided to just leave it as it is.

In addition to a lot of the stuff Megumin said which I agree with.

@Yomibito

• EPUB, TXT, PDF, DOCX and web novel (syosetu and kakuyomu) support (with manga support coming soon!).

So, no internet articles? That’s a big minus. I read stuff related to my field, and I read the news in Japanese from time to time.

@Yomibito

The reason YomiBito doesn’t currently support exporting decks is because it works a bit differently than other apps.

If I can’t export to Anki I’m very very hesitant to try anything that deals with flashcards. I don’t really care why it can’t do it. I want my flashcards from multiple sources in one place, I’m not using more than one app for that. I mine from Videos(Youtube, Netflix), E-books(from a e-reader) and internet articles. And I’m sure that if I want mine from some obscure medium I can get it into Anki somehow. Not being able to export anything also means I’m stuck in your ecosystem, I don’t want to be.

You know what would really make a new app valuable? Addons. let me add my custom code and features. It’s the main reason I love Anki and KoReader. If I want a feature, someone has probably made it for me already. But this looks like a web app which makes that hard to impossible. Why is everything a web app?

I’m not going to mince my words here. This seems like a massive downgrade from Migaku. It doesn’t actually solve any of my problems ands it creates more. It reminds me a bit of this cartoon, though the case is a bit different:

I say this because I think you made something that works well for you personally, but I don’t think your set of use cases are as universal as you think. I haven’t made an account (and I won’t), but I don’t see any support for internet video content advertised (in fact, video content in general is mentioned only very very loosely). Which means I’d still have to use other apps, and I can’t sync cards to Anki because the app treats itself as a universal stop for immersion. That combination is really bad.

There are also two features that I think are actively counterproductive:

• “Reading, reviews, lookups & chapter completion continuously update your knowledge profile”. Yea no, I don’t need a machine to guess what I know, I can mark it myself. This will never be accurate when done automatically.
• “Smart Decks”. I’m in the “never auto generate your flashcards” camp. Though this feature does appear to be optional, it feels like a trap that beginners will fall for and it will hurt them.

I’m sorry, but I would never use this in the current state.

[Yomibito]

It sounds like you’ve found a workflow that works really well for you, and that’s great! Thanks for taking the time to read the post and write such detailed feedback.

One thing I will definitely take seriously from both your feedback and Megumin’s is the ability to export data to Anki. I completely understand why that’s important, even if YomiBito’s tracking model is a bit different.

[Yomibito]

Hey all,

Updating re some of the issues Megumin mentioned :

1. Hover mode has been added for Kanji animations:

   
   I debated between stopping the animation when u stop hovering vs just letting it run. Decided to let it run but you can let me know what you think.

2. Header + Footer bar in reading pane blocking text has been fixed.

3. Keyboard support implemented for scroll up/down and left/right for prev/next chapter.

4. Gesture support added for swipe right/left for prev/next chapter as well. (Still calibrating but seemed to work fine so far)

5. Grammar cards now have furigana in both the card front as well as in the example sentences as the focus for grammar cards is grammar not vocab.

Side note fixes in case anyone encountered them:

1. Fixed a bug in full screen mode causing most actions to not work.
2. Fixed calibration for idioms/expression (many simple ones were showing as unknown) and fixed expression/idiom’s furigana from being dictionary form.

[Vie]

That would indeed prevent the error I made where I read the word 額 as がく in all circumstances for years, even though the correct reading for the “forehead” meaning is ひたい.