Japanese Reading Starter

A zero-setup Japanese ePub reader with tap-to-lookup, flashcards and LLM explanations

Problem

Intermediate Japanese learners are told to use Yomitan and Anki for reading support, but many never get past installation and configuration—it only works when someone else sets it up for them. They need something that just opens and lets them tap a word to look it up and make a card.

Solution

Combine an ePub reader, Japanese tokenizer and dictionary: tap any word to see its definition and add it to a flashcard in one click, with built-in spaced repetition; for confusing sentences, an Explain button calls an LLM to translate and break down the grammar.

Users

Intermediate Japanese learners building vocabulary through reading

MVP

Open and read ePub files; tap-to-lookup with tokenizer and dictionary; one-click flashcard creation with spaced repetition; select a sentence to call LLM for translation and grammar explanation; vocabulary highlighting and reading progress

Revenue

Free reading and lookup, subscription for LLM explanations and cloud sync; or a one-time purchase for the pro version

Why now

LLMs bring instant grammar explanations to an acceptable cost, while existing tools still require fiddly setup—indie developers can build a noticeably better experience with mature tokenizer and dictionary libraries