Shirabe Jisho review: price, free version and privacy

Our verdict

Pick Shirabe Jisho if you study Japanese and want a free, quick dictionary for the words and kanji you meet. Pair it with a course or a flashcard app, since it does not teach on its own.

What Shirabe Jisho is

Shirabe Jisho is a Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, not a course. The listing describes over 170,000 entries, over 6,500 kanji with stroke order, over 147,000 example sentences with translations and over 730,000 names. You can search by kana, kanji or romaji, by radicals, with wildcards, or by drawing a character, and the app includes kanji lists by JLPT level and school grade plus themed word lists.

Who it suits

• Japanese learners who need a fast dictionary
• Looking up kanji by handwriting or radicals
• Checking verb conjugations

Strengths

• Handwriting recognition that, according to the developer, tolerates wrong stroke order and small mistakes
• Search by kana, kanji, romaji, radicals or wildcards, so じしょ, じsho and jisho give the same results
• Kanji lists by JLPT level and school grade 1 to 6, plus word lists by subject and grammatical function
• The full dictionary is free, with a single optional $9.99 purchase
• Rated 4.9 from about 8,900 ratings and updated in October 2026

Limits

• It is a reference, not a course: no lessons, study plan or grammar explanations beyond conjugations
• Richer flashcards with conjugations, examples and related kanji need the Shirabe Extras purchase
• Japanese and English only, with 2 app interface languages
• Requires iOS 15.6 or later

What the free version does

The dictionary itself is free: the description lists the entries, kanji, names, example sentences, handwriting and radical search and JLPT lists without a paywall. The Shirabe Extras purchase adds screen customization, extended flashcard content and custom color themes.

Price

On the US App Store in November 2026, the only in-app purchase is Shirabe Extras at $9.99. No subscription appears in the price list.

Privacy

The privacy label declares no tracking. The only data type listed is diagnostics, marked as not linked to your identity.

What the screenshots show

The screenshots show the handwriting pad suggesting candidate kanji as you draw, and a word entry for 書く with its meanings, its kanji and a full conjugation table from present and past to passive, causative and volitional.