Midori (Japanese Dictionary) Reviews

by Horseradish Apostate

I could easily recommend MidoriJapaneseDictionary to beginners, but not for anyone who wants to fill the gaps in their vocabulary. Most of the words I’ve searched don’t show results. Vocabulary related to specific topics (for example, government, science/medical, architecture, math, etc.) is absent. One way I try to acquire new vocabulary is to read books and jot down the words I don’t know, so I can look them up afterwards and commit them to memory. I want to find an app I can rely on without pulling out my denshi jisho, but this isn’t it. For the price, I was hoping for something more sophisticated.

by Cassiofm

MidoriJapaneseDictionary is absolutely brilliant. I use it everyday and recommend it to all my friends that use Japanese for work or leisure. Its database is huge and very detailed. The “paste from clipboard” functionality is extremely handy.

To the developer: iCloud sync would make MidoriJapaneseDictionary a 5 stars app. It would be fantastic, specially for people who uses MidoriJapaneseDictionary in more than one device. Being able to add a word to more than one bookmark at a time would be a great time saver too.

by Blindstudy

I’ve tried many Japanese dictionaries and Midori ended up being my favorite by far. Great functionality, minimalistic but easy to see design, good speed and the best kanji writing feature I’ve seen so far.
However, there’s one thing that’s keeping me from giving 5 stars to MidoriJapaneseDictionary: it lacks cloud sync, which is something other apps have. It’s very frustrating to have to save my bookmarks in dropbox on the phone and then open, extract and save them in my iPad’s app. This takes out a lot of time since I use both devices often daily. I’ve thought about picking other dictionaries before multiple times due to this particular feature missing. I sincerely hope this will be implemented soon.

by Wiseachoo

I use MidoriJapaneseDictionary for everything, including the translate section for copy pasting NHK easy articles to gain reading practice. Having the handwriting recognition built in is also super useful.

To the developer: it would be great to have support for toggling on a “dark theme” as the white background gets a bit tough on the eyes at times.

Update: Downgraded current rating from 5 to 4 stars as the translate lookup functionality has some pretty glaring bugs. A good example is the following sentence: こちらは原先生です。The first word こちら exists in the dictionary itself but isn’t parsed during translate. I’ve seen many cases such as this requiring me to rely on additional apps. Please fix this.

by CKYrunner

As an English speaker living in Japan for the past year and a half, I have found MidoriJapaneseDictionary extremely helpful. I bought it when I had zero Japanese ability and now am studying for my n2 exam. I utilize almost all the functions of MidoriJapaneseDictionary daily from studying vocabulary to looking up words I don't understand in daily life. I love that I can save words in my own lists for later study. The new updates including the additional "common" label for words as well as being able to write any stroke order have made MidoriJapaneseDictionary even more convenient. When learning new vocabulary, I love that most words have multiple example sentences. Adding sentences to more words can make this excellent app even more outstanding. I think MidoriJapaneseDictionary is worth every ¥$€£. Thank you!

by RissaG12

MidoriJapaneseDictionary is really amazing. The multiple ways to search (romaji, hiragana, or kanji radicals, is incredibly convenient. I use it almost every day, primarily for inputting new words to the bookmark/flash card section.

The only problem I have is not about content, only usability.
The flash cards only allow you to see the Japanese first, instead of offering English first as well. If there was the option to use either Japanese or English first, I feel like the language-learning benefit would be improved.

Again, despite my tiny usability issue, overall MidoriJapaneseDictionary is incredibly useful, and anyone interested in learning Japanese will definitely benefit from it!

by Mslobster

I love the bookmark function to be able to save words for later review. Conjugations for the win! Some of the example sentences are a little odd but help put in context how to use words grammatically. I would love to see antonyms as sometimes searches don’t net what you need without some digging. If you are studying Japanese this a great tool and works offline which is awesome.

by Peacetype

This is hands down the best Japanese dictionary app out of all the ones I checked out for iOS. It does everything I would want out of an electronic dictionary. Look up words in English or Japanese by entering characters, or selecting radicals, or drawing the kanji. It automatically saves everything you look up to the history so you can refer to it later. You can also bookmark useful entries and organize them into folders. Each entry is very detailed: gives the definition, shows stroke order, gives example sentences, shows the relevant kanji's meaning, and let's you add notes. All words are cross-linked so you can easily jump to another entry. What a wonderful job this developer has done! Worth every penny!

by Wennefer

MidoriJapaneseDictionary is both a terrific Japanese dictionary and a tool for helping one learn Japanese. You can do almost anything you'd want to do with Japanese, from looking up words, studying Kanji, studying example sentences, etc. This version adds a Safari extension which makes it even more useful - you can now translate Japanese web pages directly from Safari.

by DL Rich

Midori is an extremely comprehensive and effective tool for Japanese language study. The best out there in my view. The example sentences, range of vocabulary, ability to customize lists and share them and the eye-friendly layout are just a few of the great features. The responsiveness and support from the developer are also excellent. Highly recommended.

by Otterbine

I have had this dictionary for years. It’s only improved since first getting it. The most useful thing for me is the kanji drawing app, which is by far the most accurate and smartest I’ve come across. It has tons of example sentences, which you can search either by English or Japanese. It also include some slangs and more modern words.
I’m very very happy with this dictionary!

by Tonsfocus

Every time you search for a new word, you go down a wonderful rabbit hole and can get lost as you bounce from one new word to another. I especially love how you can drill down into a kanji to see the basic radicals that compose the whole. Also, thrilled to have the stroke order for kanji. Everything is laid out so clearly and neatly. I love using this dictionary!

by QuesadillaGrandpa

I spent ten dollars on MidoriJapaneseDictionary wondering if I would actually use it. MidoriJapaneseDictionary is the absolute best offline dictionary. It was extremely helpful when I went to Japan and didn’t have cell phone service. It has clear definitions, tons of examples, and you’re able to examine each kanji in detail. It also includes kanji and vocabulary lists for every JLPT level. Best tool I have ever bought for Japanese language study.

by ★Li

I love MidoriJapaneseDictionary. I use it all the time living in Japan and often bookmark things I look up to review later. It’s incredibly handy. The only thing I wish it had is a way to limit daily new words to study.

I also wish there was a way to sync between devices. I usually study in my iPhone, but read Japanese books on my iPad. Most of the new words from reading wind up saved on the iPad, so I never get around to studying them.

by Iamferron

Midori has been my go-to for Kanji look-up, organizing bookmark sets by chapter from my text book, translation, and verb conjugation. My favorite two features are:

1) the draw-kanji input: when drawing a character by sight, the recognition is so generous it’s scary, and is the biggest help of all when trying to decipher kanji I can’t recognize.

2) the list of example uses and breakdowns of multi-character words. Most of the examples from my text book are in the first few examples of the kanji I’ve bookmarked in MidoriJapaneseDictionary.

by Phibonachi

Ignore dictionaries that try to be too much (imiwa? Shirabe? Japanese?). I’ve tried them all, still prefer the smooth efficiency of Midori.

The pros:
fast, reliable, good handwriting, stroke and radical lookups, bookmarking, pitch accent guides, click-through to dive deeper. Works fine on on iPhone and iPad.

I was able to easily integrate it with my massive hand tuned Anki decks (10,000+ cards I’ve used for a decade), so I have the best possible integrated flash cards, too. If you want kanji writing recognition flash cards, get Skritter. It’s worth it. But for a dictionary, the only thing you need after Midori is DAIJIRIN, when you’re ready to learn Japanese in Japanese. Forget the rest.

Cons:
Can’t sync word lists (bookmarks) automatically. It does have a reliably functional export-import that I use to mail myself to manually sync once/week. It’s a workaround that works, and not ridiculously cumbersome, but automatic direct sync would be nice.

by Drkotoh

I've passed the JLPT N1 and have lived in Japan for the last five years. However, I use Midori wash l each and everyday whether to check the newspaper, to confirm the meaning of a sign I see outside, or to double-check a word that I heard during a meeting. It's so easy to use.

One small improvement I would like to see is the ability to put a folder within a folder in bookmarks a little easier. I come across so many words that I bookmark thanks to Midori and would love to be able to organize my lists a little better. Otherwise, this is an amazing app!

by Samedeepwaterasyou75

I’ve been using Midori for about seven years now, and it has been consistently one of my most valuable tools in learning Japanese. Other dictionaries have similar features, but something about this one just feels and flows better. It gets out of the way and lets you just learn.

Feature request: could you add WaniKani level information for kanji and vocabulary? That would be AMAZINGLY useful for a lot of people, and would likely attract new users from the large pool of WK users.

Edit: While I’m at it, how hard would it be to add pitch accent information?

by Cheunga22

Not only the best Japanese dictionary, but the best of any foreign language dictionary that I’ve found. UI is clean and easy to navigate. The flash card system is fantastic for learning vocabulary and the adaptive recall system is the perfect amount of functionality without bombarding you with endless options that you need to configure. Using the flash card system I was able to learn almost 1000 words in about a month, by simply reviewing the recommended cards for each day. Only thing that’s lacking - please make an equivalent app for Chinese! :)

by Sam_H111

I use MidoriJapaneseDictionary about everyday for learning how to read Japanese involving kanji. It’s great that there are multiple ways to look up unknown kanji with MidoriJapaneseDictionary. The way I use it is to use the multi-tasking feature of my iPad to open up the Google Translate web page with Safari on the left side of the iPad screen, and then to open up Midori on the right side of the screen. Then I can look up individual kanji and Japanese words with Midori, and then either cut-and-paste or type the words into Google Translate on the left side of the screen so I can quickly translate entire Japanese sentences into English.